Diplomacy
by jeweled inferno
Summary: Gandalf is keeping Sauron away from Hermione's world, and he wants her help. She becomes an Unspeakable and thousands of years pass, during which friends disappear and fade from memory. Just as the Ring reappears in the Shire, a long-dead friend somehow sends her a disturbing message: Voldemort is still alive. Includes guest appearances by vampires and Arthurian legends.
1. Department Transfer

**Disclaimer: Honestly, are you a Took? Of course it's not mine!**

**Edited: 1/27/2012**

**Words: 2,076**

**Unicorns and/or plates of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies: Sadly, 0. But I'll send you one of each if you review at the end. :-)**

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**1: Department Transfer**

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Hermione Granger sighed and tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for the man in front of her to just shout his destination into the green fire and be gone. Honestly, the fireplaces at the Ministry were useless for actually getting around.

As the man finally disappeared with an indistinct shout (she hoped he ended up in Knockturn Alley), and, as she stepped up to the fireplace, Hermione resolved to never get her Apparation license suspended again. Just because her (muggle) friend had been visiting was no reason to—

"Miss Granger?" She sighed again and let the handful of powder trickle through her fingers and back into the bag, the rather conspicuous absence of the Weasley engagement ring that had previously adorned her finger making her wince. Even though _she _had broken up with _Ron,_ it had been a pretty damn big argument—one that still had quite a few painful memories.

"Yes?" She turned around and stepped out of the line for the Floo, noting absently that it was going to take her a hell of a long time to get back to the front of the queue. A few of the other Ministry workers shot her sympathetic glances.

"Follow me, please," An Unspeakable hurried past her, a middle-aged man she was certain she had never seen before.

The twenty-one-year-old sighed and tugged her long braid as she stared at the cloaked back. Deciding it was probably best to get it (whatever 'it' was) over with quickly, the new Director of Magical Law Enforcement swept down the hall after the Unspeakable. They walked through parts of the Ministry Hermione had only seen blueprints for, then turned left and entered part of the building she was almost a hundred percent certain was _not_ on any floor plan—and she had access to them all.

Giving the Unspeakable a sharp look when they ventured from the known corridors, he responded with a slightly sardonic smile and continued down the hall. A quick glance at her watch revealed that Crookshanks would most certainly _not_ be amused when he finally got his dinner.

"Is this it?" She asked when they finally reached a door and the man stopped. He just raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh, so it's like _that_, is it?" Hermione muttered to herself, glaring at the Unspeakable and reaching behind her back, underneath her cloak, to affirm that her wand was still stuck in the top of her pants.

He just smirked at her, then opened the door and poked his head inside.

"Miss Hermione Granger, here to see you, sir." She gave him one last haughty look and stepped inside the office uninvited.

A grey-haired man, holding what looked suspiciously like a pipe, sat in a comfortable leather armchair. He wore dirty, travel-stained grey-brown robes, and he had blue eyes that reminded her of Dumbledore.

Blinking away the thought and refocusing on the present, Hermione noted that the Unspeakable had left. The old man was watching her, apparently waiting for something.

"I don't believe we've met," She told him shortly as she dropped into the only other chair in the office, her patience wearing thin after the long trek through the bowls of the Ministry. "I'm Hermione Granger, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and you, I presume, are the elusive Head of the Department of Mysteries."

The man grinned and lifted the pipe—Hermione barely refrained from wrinkling her nose.

"Indeed, Miss Granger, but I am not Head of the D.O.M." She raised an eyebrow. "I am the Chairman and single staff member of one of its most important subdivisions."

Hermione considered privately that every department thought it was one of the most important.

"My name is Gandalf the Grey, and I am the Eru- and Ministry- approved 'Ambassador to Arda.' But I've discovered that there are some other more important things that need doing in my land." Her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline and he grinned her cheerfully. "That's where you come in. Would you be willing to join the department? I've been telling the Head of the D.O.M. that I need a wizard in my department for years, but you're the first person we've found that was suitable."

When staring at the wizard disbelievingly for about two minutes didn't cause her to wake up from the dream she was obviously having (it came from having that bloody Lord of the Rings marathon with Ginny, she just _knew_ it!), Hermione shut her mouth and blinked.

"Um…"

"Excellent!" The old wizard smiled at her winningly, then stood up and gestured for her to follow him towards a door behind his desk. "I'll explain things, if you'll just follow me?"

She stood up and did as she was told—after all, if he was telling the truth, then he was thousands of years old—all thoughts of Crookshanks' dinner gone from her mind. They walked through the room with the Veil, causing her to flinch involuntarily and rub the place where she had gotten that nasty scar across her chest, in fifth year.

Luckily, Voldemort was now gone, along with all his pesky little Death Eaters, courtesy Harry.

"You will have access to the Philosopher's Stone, of course," Gandalf called back to her as she hurried to keep up. "Since a requirement of the job is continuous access to Arda."

Deciding to ignore the glaring fact that MIDDLE-EARTH DID NOT EXIST, Hermione ventured cautiously, "I thought the last Stone was destroyed by the Nicholas Flamel and his wife, before they died."

"Oh, that was hardly the last, my dear," The wizard told her cheerfully as they glided past the brains. "The Department of Mysteries would certainly not give up research on such an important object."

"Oh, certainly not." She muttered to herself, not quite ready to accept the job but unwilling to say anything with 'Gandalf' acting as obsessed as he was.

"I'll visit you here, and you will have to visit me—and Elrond, not to mention the kingdoms of Men every few years. Oh, and you should know the dwarves, as well…"

He trailed off, lost in plans that Hermione was clearly not privy to. She frowned and raised an eyebrow.

"Well then, Gandalf, are you going to explain to me how exactly Middle-Earth exists or do I have to call my friends over at St. Mungo's?"

He turned towards her in surprise and set off on a long monologue (delivered while he was standing in the middle of Pluto, no less) describing the various interactions of the worlds through the years.

Since we all know how long-winded Gandalf can be, the author will spare you having to listen to his speech. What Hermione worked out later (yes, on a list—that's just how she rolls) was as follows:

_1.) Eru creates the universe._

_2.) Eru sends the Valar off to make Arda._

_3.) Eru creates Earth._

_4.) Melkor found out about Earth and linked it to Arda._

_5.) Melkor was renamed Morgoth, and visited Earth after being kicked off of Arda._

_6.) He caused chaos there in the form of Mordred, making the Valar send Gandalf (then Olórin) to work with Merlin and kick him off Earth and back into Arda._

_7.) Before being thrown into the Void, he managed to tell Sauron how to reach Earth._

_8.) Eru ordered Gandalf to stand guard over the doorway between the worlds, and to ensure that, if Sauron should ever follow Morgoth, Earth will be prepared to deal with him._

"…and so, while I am called back to Arda, it is necessary that someone should be able to keep relations between our worlds, for I have found that this world has many dangerous things better kept away from Arda. You, Miss Granger, are already in good standing in this world." He stepped out of Pluto, towards where she was sitting underneath Venus. "The Head of the Department of Mysteries knows who you are, and, each generation, will provide you with a new identity, complete with supporting documents."

"Who in your world knows?" She peered up at him. It was hard to read expressions in this dark room. It was hard to read Gandalf's expressions, period.

"None but I." He dropped down unceremoniously. "When you visit, I will simply say you are a friend. The Elves will be suspicious, of course, but whenever I need to be in this world, I simply tell them that I am going on a journey far east, past the Sea of Rhûn. They will deduce that that is your homeland."

Hermione smirked in appreciation. "You are a regular schemer, aren't you?"

He returned her smile innocently. "Well, if you really want to put it that bluntly. Of course, it will be to no purpose if you do not wish to work for this Department."

Hermione considered. Romp around Middle Earth, the land of a book that she had admired ever since she'd pulled it off her father's shelf in third grade, or stay at the Ministry rounding up the few Death Eaters that had escaped 'the purge' (as Ron called it)?

It wasn't that easy, of course—it never was. She had friends, although her family was gone, and they weren't to be given up easily.

"I wasn't aware you were asking." She commented to fill the silence. Gandalf chuckled, then fell silent, waiting for her answer.

If she could help these people, Hermione decided, she would do it. After all, now that she knew they were real people and not just characters in a story, there was no reason why it had to follow the storyline _exactly_. She could stop Boromir from dying, Aragorn from being stupid about Arwen leaving for Valinor, Boromir from dying, Theodred from suffering, and Theoden from being possessed, not to mention stopping Boromir from dying.

So she had a bit of a thing for Sean Bean. No big deal.

"What age is it in Arda, right now?" She asked suddenly, knowing that she had to make the decision _now_. Experience dealing with the Unspeakables had taught her that if she left now, she would be Obliviated and never offered the job again.

"Near the end of the second," Gandalf said slowly. "Which is why I am needed."

"I want to be allowed to visit."

He looked slightly surprised.

"Simply by taking the job, you will have free rein to do as you will, as long as it does not involve the destruction of our world."

"Oh! Somehow I expected to be more closely monitored." He laughed a little.

"You were, for a very long time. I had to find the right person, you see, because even though I am not allowed to read the books—Eru would not stand for it—I have a certain amount of knowledge given to me by Him, and I knew I would soon be needed elsewhere."

"Stalker." She murmured teasingly.

"Come," he stood and held out his hand. "I need to teach you the makings of the Elixir of Life. The Recruitment Division will erase you from the public."

"Hmm." Hermione said noncommittally. "Give Ginevra Weasley my cat, would you, please?"

Gandalf didn't even question it, just nodded and led the way down the hall.

About an hour later, they were standing back in the middle of their solar system, with a newly immortal Hermione. (She felt a bit _glowy_, as if she had just swallowed pure life. Well, come to think of it, she _had._)

"So now what?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at Gandalf. He stifled a laugh at the realization that she would fit right in with the Elves—Elrond especially.

"Your office," he said, and led her there. They barely stopped in before he was dragging her towards a special room. Apparently, it was the only place you could arrive in or depart from on Earth, with a two mile margin of error.

He took far too long to explain the process, but eventually, it was time to go.

Hermione accepted a small chunk of obsidian for her anchor to Earth. She would have to find a token from Arda, as well, and keep the two together. It would make the passage between worlds easier—in fact, without the obsidian (or Eru's assistance) she would not be able to return to Earth at all.

Gandalf went over the process once more. Hermione set the password to her amulet.

And so they left Earth.

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**Welcome to my little corner of Teh Inetrwebz! I'm going for something completely original with this story—follow it to the end and tell me if I succeeded!**

**Note on pairings: If you're looking for Legolas/Hermione, you've come to the wrong place. I enjoy gawking at Orlando Bloom as much as any other warm-blooded female, but Glorfindel will always be my first love.**

***Dreamy sigh.***

**Anyway, as long as this story is still in progress, you can go to my page and vote in the poll for "Who should Hermione end up with?" I promise to include some fluff for the top two winners (top three if Glorfy's in first or second).**

**Happy reading!**


	2. Interlude

**Disclaimer: You're still worried about this? Oh, just go walk into Mordor. **

**Edited: 1/27/2012**

**Words: 464**

**House-elves and/or chocolate chip muffins: Sadly, 0. But I will send you one of each if you review. :-)**

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**2: Interlude (or, Don't worry; they're not all going to be this short.)**

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Hermione had expected immortality to be awful and lonely.

All-in-all, however, it was really quite enjoyable.

After her first few visits to Arda—most of which were to Ost-in-Edhil, the capital of Eregion, although quite a few were to Imladris—she felt comfortable enough with its inhabitants to go back and forth through the door (which involved apparating while standing on a fancy, rune-inscribed floor, along with canaries and ivy leaves) without Gandalf.

She studied the sword under Glorfindel, the third Elf she had met in Arda (after he returned from being dead, of course), and improved slowly until she could beat both Elladen and Elrohir—her Balrog-slaying teacher was still a bit above her level. Of course, she and the twins were more often seen together causing mischief around Rivendell, and the Elves developed a vaguely amused and tolerant attitude towards the immortal human after a few hundred years.

On the Earth side of things, Ministers came and went, some good, some bad, and some just plain stupid. She found that, eventually, she didn't care so much what they did. Arda became the 'real' world, and Earth the 'secondary' one; after living for so long among humans and watching them make the same mistakes over and over again, visits to the Elves were especially treasured.

Gradually, the muggles began to kill each other off, and wizards revealed themselves more and more, but still Hermione remained secluded in the Ministry, her existence known and understood only by the Head of the Department of Mysteries.

She came to know that this elusive Head was also immortal, and had his (her?) own Philosopher's Stone. Hermione tried not to be bothered by this, and largely succeeded, due to Gandalf's insistence that she spend at least as much time in Middle Earth as he did on Earth.

She made sure to renew her Mediwitch license every few decades, and even entered a dueling tournament once in a while. It was a good life, living in the high ages of the Elves as well as one of those rare times of relative peace between wizards and muggles.

Finally, however, Gandalf stopped by her office with grave news that the One Ring had once again surfaced, and Hermione sighed, grabbed her cloak, belted on her sword—a gift from Haldir—and swung a pack over her shoulder. Twenty seconds later, she met Gandalf's eyes and grinned.

"Ready!" He shook his head and preceded her out of the room.

"I don't believe I've ever seen a woman get ready so fast." He told her, smiling.

"Watch yourself," she told him tartly, "Or I'll start planning something with Elrohir and Elladen."

They exited Earth to the ringing sound of Gandalf's laughter.

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**I forgot to ask when I reposted the first chapter, but I need a better summary for this story. Come up with one and PM it or send a review and I'll dedicate a whole chapter to you. No lie. **


	3. The Letter

**Disclaimer: Ah-ha! You finally realized it's not mine! Guess I won't force you into the Void after all.**

**Edited: 1/27/2012**

**Words: 3,463**

**Sirius jokes and/or peanut butter fudge: Sadly, 0. But I'll give you one of each if you review at the end. :-) **

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**3: The Letter**

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The two arrived in a secluded spot of the forest, precluding any awkward questions about their origins. Although Hermione made a point to wear loose, generic robes that were acceptable in both worlds and it was hardly unusual for Gandalf to be seen wandering through the trees (or just wandering, period), appearing out of nowhere with a sprinkle of feathers and a few leaves _is _a bit abnormal.

Of course, there were a few Elvish guards, but they were all more or less familiar with the pair's mysterious methods of vanishing (ah, how the Mischief Makers of Rivendell had caused chaos before Elrond figured out she could apparate…).

"Good morning, Sylvie**[1]**," Hermione stared up into a tree, grinning, and a younger Elf stuck her head down through the branches, frowning.

Although noticing an Elf was much easier than sneaking up on an Elf, it was still very difficult, and usually not possible for any human other than Aragorn (he was a special case). The near-constant charms she had on her eyes and ears, however, had gradually worsened her normal sight, but the magic they used had burned a mutation into her rods and cones. An overlay of "magic sight" showed constantly wherever she looked, especially in the magic-rich world of Middle Earth. It was both a blessing and a curse—although she wouldn't be able to see the green color of the Dark Mark, it showed as bright as the sun.

Elves, of course, had a magic of their own, making it very easy for Hermione to see them. (Despite Glorfindel's apprehension when Hermione finally told him this fact, however, the Elves did not actually glow purple. They were just different from their surroundings, in the way that a red apple was different from a green one.)

"How'd you find me that time?" She asked without preamble, dropping down to the ground gracefully and pouting.

"Heavy breather." She winked at the Elf, then gestured for her to lead the way into Rivendell. No matter how many times she visited, she always managed to get lost in the woods. Bloody trees.

Sylvie gave Hermione a look that clearly portrayed what she thought of _that_ statement, then turned around and stepped lightly down the path. The other two exchanged an amused look, then followed her, but the closer they got to the Last Homely House, the graver Gandalf became.

"It must be destroyed." He said suddenly.

"Well… yeah." Hermione replied, raising an eyebrow. The wizard didn't usually like to state the obvious so bluntly. "In the fires of Mount Doom."

"Actually, I was hoping you could try and do something." He looked down at her. "Don't you have some kind of magical fire? 'Demon Fire,' I think it's called."

"Fiendfyre." She answered somberly, as they turned a corner and Rivendell was revealed in all its glory. Sylvie, noting that they seemed to be having a rather intense conversation, slipped back to her post unnoticed. Hermione sighed and ran a hand through her hair absentmindedly. "I'll try it, but I don't think it'll work."

"Try what?" Elrond stepped into place beside them as they walked along the road towards his home.

"Hello to you, too," She told him, amused. "We were debating how whether or not I could destroy the Ring using my magic."

"And?" He raised an eyebrow.

"And she doesn't think it will work," Gandalf put in. "But I think it's worth a try, at least."

"Anything is worth a try, at this point," He told them frankly. "I have sixteen dwarves staying under my roof."

Hermione chuckled.

"And would one of them happen to be named Gimli?" He raised an eyebrow and shook his head ruefully. "Is Legolas here yet?"

"Yes and yes, and I'm not going to ask how you figured those two out. The apparation wards I made you set up haven't broken down, have they?" He asked suspiciously.

"No," She smirked at him, reveling in the fact that only the twins knew she was keyed into the wards and could thus enter or exit whenever she wanted to. "And good, because I wouldn't tell you."

"Herm—"

"—Mione!" Lifting her head to search out the Elves that the voices belonged to, Hermione was forcibly reminded of Fred and George. Not only did Elladen and Elrohir also employ 'twin-speak,' (they'd taken the system as a challenge after she told them about the Weasley twins) but they probably could have held their own against the Weasley twins in a prank war.

They were no match for her, of course, due to her extended dealings with Weasleys and Potters of all shapes and sizes. It was part of the reason for their truce—the other reason was, of course, that they were the Mischief Makers of Rivendell and inseparable friends.

"Good morning!" She called up to them cheerfully, finally catching sight of the two dark-haired figures on a second-story balcony.

"Oh, goodness," Elrond muttered to Gandalf. "Here they go again."

The old wizard smiled at their antics and shook his head.

"And a good morning to you!" Elladen's voice was muffled by the stone walls as he and his brother hurried down the steps to reach street-level.

"How are you this fine day?" She asked them as a drop of rain landed on her nose and they emerged from the buildings. Elrohir looked up at the overcast sky very deliberately, then back down at Hermione.

"Quite well, thank you," He replied primly. "And you?"

They walked down the street on either side of Hermione as their 'small talk' continued. It was their little inside joke, derived from one of those you-had-to-be-there stories.

Elrond and Gandalf shook their heads and turned the other way, towards the room where Frodo was due to wake any moment.

"Do you really think she will be able to destroy it?" The wizard sighed.

"I don't know," He looked up at the sky as if searching for answers. "Her people… they can do terrible things. Great things, of course, with their magic—heal sickness, create great buildings, provide food and shelter for all their people, etcetera. But…"

Elrond didn't really like the sound of that 'but.'

"But?"

The young hobbit creeping along behind the two older beings stifled his desire to chime in with another 'but'—and not the conjunction. Much as the new arrival was interesting, the conversation was just getting ridiculously tense.

"But they have also invented methods of killing each other off quite efficiently—many of their machines can kill thousands at once." The Eyebrows of Doom disappeared into Elrond's hairline (quite a feat, considering where his hairline _was_) and he looked at Gandalf incredulously. "At the moment, their countries are in a state of so-called 'peace,' but it is only a matter of time until one or another offends some power and they blow each other off the face of their—the world."

_That_ was a close call. Luckily, Elrond didn't seem to notice.

"Is she… safe to have near the Ring, then?" Although he had known the Lady Hermione for a very long time, well… things were changing, and that was that. "It could help whatever country she is from defeat the others in this war you…"

Gandalf, however, was already shaking his head. Pippin crept forward a little more, straining to hear their next words.

"She can wield more power with a flick of her wrist or a snap of her fingers than she could with the One Ring." The Eyebrows of Doom returned to furrow above Elrond's narrowed eyes. Pippin's eyes, on the other hand, widened until they rivaled Sam's frying pan in size, and he scampered off to tell the other hobbits what he had found out.

"Varda," The Elf-lord muttered under his breath. "And she's never once hinted at it."

"Well, considering that she is the only immortal among them, I should hope that Hermione is perhaps the slightest bit wiser than the others."

"Despite her carefree manner, Hermione is very wise."

"Hmm…" He was clearly remembering a certain incident involving pink dye, Glorfindel, and the twins.

Gandalf smiled slightly and continued, "We agreed that it would not be prudent to clearly display the extent of her powers, lest the Enemy hear of it and develop an interest in her."

Elrond nodded and filed this information away for later.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, before reaching Frodo's room. The old wizard put his hand on the doorknob to open it, just as Elrond opened his mouth.

"Oh, and Mithrandir?" He turned. "Someday, please tell me where she is _really_ from."

So much for fooling Lord Elrond Halfelven. He nodded, slightly ruefully, and stepped into the room.

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Meanwhile, Hermione and the twins were ensconced in the most remote, unvisited room they could find—which happened to be the Hall of Fire—planning how they could take revenge on Glorfindel for the bucket of ice water poised over Hermione's door. It was a good thing she had made Elrohir walk into the room first.

"How do we even know it was Glorfindel?" Elladen finally asked, after they had come up with ideas from dropping him fully clothed into the river to having Hermione cast a glamour on Asfaloth and turning him into a unicorn and/or a thestral.

"I might be able to help you there," someone said from the doorway. Hermione had her hand on her wand almost immediately, while the twins started at her swift movement and fell backwards. A male figure stepped forward, revealing himself to be a redheaded Man. "Lord Glorfindel placed the bucket above your door this morning, as soon as he heard who was coming. He was muttering something about 'revenge' and 'pink'."

"Ah," Elrohir recovered, standing up and trying not to look like he was completely soaked with water. The others were damp, of course, from the slight drizzle, but that didn't really help Elrohir's mood any. "My Lord Boromir."

"Thank you for the assistance, my lord." Added Elladen, getting a hand up from Hermione.

"I don't believe we've met," She said when it became clear that the twins weren't going to introduce them. "I'm Hermione Granger, from the Far East."

"A pleasure to meet you, Lady Hermione," He bowed slightly. "I am Boromir, son of Denethor, Steward of Gondor."

"So what's this you say about Glorfindel putting a bucket of water over the door?" Elladen finally asked, noting that his brother seemed to be getting impatient with the introductions. They were all soaked in water, but he was reasonably certain there had been a few ice blocks that landed down Elrohir's shirt.

"Well…" He started off, sitting down against the wall and prompting the others to sit down as well. "I arrived here very early this morning…"

By the time Glorfindel found himself tied almost naked—they'd let him keep his pants—to a tree (he _knew _it had been a bad idea to accept alcohol from Hermione!), Boromir had become an honorary member of the self-appointed Mischief Makers of Rivendell.

Meanwhile, however, the hobbits were having a cheerful reunion on Frodo's bed. Gandalf watched them with a faint smile on his face as they giggled and tried to hit each other with the fluffy pillows without jostling Frodo's shoulder. Pippin, however, wasn't as enthusiastic as the rest, and eventually, he jumped off the bed and stepped towards the wizard.

For his part, Mithrandir prepared to defend himself against any ill-thought-out attacks on the part of the (relatively) young hobbit.

"Gandalf," He began slowly, making the aforementioned sigh and lean back in his chair. This did not sound like it would be a pleasant chat. "Who was that woman that you arrived with? I couldn't help overhearing you tell Lord Elrond that she had powerful magic."

"You couldn't help but overhear, eh?" He shook his head in exasperation. "That curiosity will be the death of you one day, young Took!"

Sam caught the word 'death' and turned his attention to their conversation, earning himself a pillow to the side of the head (courtesy Merry). He gave the other hobbit a brief glare, and Frodo sighed in relief when the bed stopped jostling at last.

"All the same, Gandalf, who is she?"

"Who's who?" Merry chimed in, climbing off the bed.

"A very old friend of mine arrived with me this morning," The wizard told them. They would have found out eventually—better to hear her story from him than someone else (Varda forbid they asked _Glorfindel_—the victim of roughly ninety percent of the MMR's pranks). "Hermione Granger is a member of a very elite group of people from the Far East. They dwell past Mirkwood, past the Sea of Rhûn." He paused to puff on his pipe, a sure sign to anyone that knew him well that he was lying.

"But the _magic_, Gandalf!" Pippin said. "Can she make fireworks, like you?"

"Oh, I daresay she can make much more than fireworks." He replied, holding back a laugh. "In fact, I have seen her do much worse on many occasions."

"Worse? What do you mean, worse?" Sam asked as he joined the other two on the floor, worried for Mr. Frodo.

"Just a slip of the tongue," Gandalf recovered quickly. Frodo narrowed his eyes—he'd known the old wizard long enough to at least guess when he was lying. "She is a great Healer—" Well, maybe that was a _slight_ exaggeration, but the hobbits would never see another Mediwitch to compare her to. "—and she is a loyal friend."

"Except to me," Glorfindel said ruefully from the doorway. "I see you are awake, Master Frodo."

"Yes, Lord Glorfindel, thank you." Said the hobbit from his bed.

"As if you don't retaliate just as much as them." Gandalf told him, smiling, as he leaned back in his chair.

"I still say they started it." If the hobbits hadn't known better they would have sworn that there was whining edge to his voice. But of course, this was an elf that had seen thousands of years—no mere human could make him whine. Could they?

"Oh? Then why did Boromir tell me he saw you balancing a bucket of water over her door?"

"That was for the pink dye." He said self-righteously.

Gandalf sighed. "You know they're just going to do something worse now, right?"

"They can just try." He replied darkly, and swept out of the room with a short, "Glad you feel better," to Frodo.

"Who are 'they'?" Pippin burst out, glad that the imposing elf-lord had gone so he could ask his question. "And what do they have to do with pink dye?"

"'They' are the self-titled 'Mischief Makers of Rivendell'." Gandalf replied slowly, once again puffing on his pipe. "And they consist of Lady Hermione, and Lord Elrond's twin sons, Elladen and Elrohir."

"Dye?" Prompted Sam when the wizard fell silent.

"Hmm? Oh, yes… there was an incident a few years ago in which the Mischief Makers turned Lord Glorfindel pink for a week. It was payment for when he stole all of Lord Elrohir's clothes and replaced them with dresses, I believe."

"No, it was Elladen," A voice from the door made them look up to see none other than Hermione herself, grinning like the Cheshire cat. "Elrohir was the one who spent a month complaining to me about having his clothes stolen while the seamstresses made a new wardrobe for his brother."

Gandalf eyed her. "What have you done now?"

"Nothing!" She said, then thought about the bottles of wine she had just doctored and labeled 'to Glorfindel' and added, "Yet."

He made a noncommittal noise and looked over the hobbits. They appeared to be slightly awed—well, Frodo didn't, but since he had fallen back asleep, Gandalf figured he didn't count.

"You know, we never did find out where he put those clothes." She mentioned thoughtfully. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"Me? Of course not. Although, if I were to look, I would check under the false floorboard in the closet of the fourth guestroom," He added as an afterthought, his expression once again reminding her of Dumbledore.

"Ah! Thank you."

"Just don't tell the twins how you know that." The wizard told her. The last thing he needed was to be swarmed by the offspring of Elrond.

"Whatever you say." She made to leave the room, but Gandalf called her back.

"You don't look like you've been soaked with water." He raised an eyebrow.

"How did you—nevermind. I made sure one of the twins walked in first." She grinned. "I think Glorfindel figured out that I was the one who was behind the pink dye."

Gandalf just shook his head and returned his attention to his pipe.

Hermione waved goodbye to the hobbits and went off in the general direction of the guest rooms, fabricating a believable tale of risk, danger, and the rescue of Elladen's clothes.

"She seems to be very… mischievous," ventured Merry.

"Quite." And that was all they could get out of him on the subject of Hermione Granger of the Far East.

Hermione reached the fourth bedroom and paused, glancing around. There was the closet, and presumably the loose floorboard, but there was an odd feeling to the room.

Truth be told, it reminded her of the feeling she had had all those years ago, standing in the Hospital Wing with Harry and the Weasleys with a charmed jar ready to capture Rita Skeeter—the feeling of being watched. That was it.

She made her way over to the closet, reaching behind her for her wand, just in case. Was it her imagination, or had a cloud just passed across the sun? Ah, well—no matter. She'd always had an irrational fear of the dark (and of heights), but a few shadows didn't bother her. Not much, at least.

The closet door stuck, and Hermione had to release her wand and use both hands to open it. As soon as it opened, a cloud of dust was released into to air. Coughing and waving her hands around in the air, she peered through the dust to see the bare floor of the room. There was the false floorboard, just as she remembered from the time she and the twins had 'borrowed' Arwen's journal…

Anyway, the floorboard was also stuck—Hermione resolved to speak to Elrond about the deplorable conditions of his home's nooks and crannies—and she was forced to focus magic into her fingers and trace it onto the edges of the plank before it popped open. The clothes were remarkable clean, and Hermione smirked. Glorfindel probably wouldn't notice the return of the clothes, but it was the _principle_ of the thing.

Putting the clothes on the dusty floor—they would have had to be washed anyway—Hermione made to replace the floorboard when something caught her attention. A second false board; but the space under the clothes should have been filled with stone.

Etched into the wood in Old English (not to be confused with Ye Olde English, which is completely different) were the letters 'H ~ J ~ G'. Judging by the length of time the clothes had remained above the letters, undisturbed, the letters would have had to have been etched during Britain's brief stint as a Chinese vassal state. But she'd been known in the magical world as Sarah McKinnon-Brown during that generation; no one knew her true name except the Head of the D.O.M. (wherever he had gone off to; she'd been a little busy protecting the Departure Room to worry about that).

Somehow she doubted the mysterious Head had scratched those letters into the floor.

Hermione sent magic into her tear ducts, enchanting the fluid of her eyes as it became a separate entity. The liquid made a film over her irises, enhancing the already skewed vision to the point that even the slightest charm—or curse—would become visible.

The board (and whatever was underneath it, for she now saw a hollow space) were clean.

Blinking the tears away and frowning down at the wood, Hermione again sent magic into her fingertips and opened the secret compartment.

Inside was a very nondescript, plain, letter. The envelope was slightly yellowed by age, but could have been bought at any Staples (she didn't care what the Japanese company that now owned the franchise renamed it—the store would always be Staples to her, dammit!) in the past three thousand years.

The ink that flowed across the front of the envelope was also nondescript—black, plain, about 0.7 mm—but it made her gasp nonetheless.

She knew that handwriting.

* * *

**[1] I'm rubbish at Sindarin and Quenyan, but Sylvie really needs an Elvish name. Send your suggestions via review or PM! She probably won't show up in the story again, but she really needs a name!**

**Hehe… cliffhangers! Oh, how I love them. And you won't find out who the letter's from until the end of the next chapter. Which is over 4,000 words long.**

**Please excuse me while I go cackle in glee.**


	4. Oooh, Voldy Voldy Voldemort!

**Disclaimer: No, you Balrog-brained buffoon, neither J.R.R. Tolkien nor J.K. Rowling invented purple magic. I did. So there.**

**Edited: 1/27/2012**

**Words: 4,163**

**Potter Puppet Pals references: Hey, look, there's one in the title! Quick, review, before it gets away!**

* * *

**4: Oooh, Voldy Voldy Voldemort!**

* * *

Hermione rocked back on her heels and eyed the letter warily. The messy scrawl looked even sloppier than usual—and she'd gone over enough of his papers to have seen his handwriting at its worst.

"Hermione?" A familiar male voice called from the door to the room. She leaned back until her head protruded from the closet.

"In here, Glorfindel!" He made his way over slowly, with a raised eyebrow.

"Might I ask what you're—ah." He'd spotted the folded clothes. "How did you figure out where those were?"

She dropped the letter on top of the clothes and picked up the pile before standing gracefully.

"Gandalf," She grinned at him, a strand of hair falling into her face. "That old bugger knows everything that happens around here."

Glorfindel shook his head, a slight smile tugging at his mouth, and resisted the urge to put the rebellious strand back behind her ear.

"I don't understand how he does it," They shared a few moments of silence, contemplating the wizard's mysterious omniscience, before the elf gestured at the pile. "Do you need any help with that?"

Her lips twitched, as if she were holding back a smile.

"Do you promise not to run off with them?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"Do you promise to _never_ dye my hair pink again?"

Hermione paused and considered this.

"What about purple?"

Glorfindel coughed something that sounded suspiciously like 'ice water'.

"Hmm, no purple, then…" She handed off half the pile to the elf. "It's a pity. I do so like that color."

"Any particular reason why?" He asked, as she led the way out of the room.

"It's the color of magic," The pair nodded the two hobbits waiting for them outside the door. Although Pippin looked slightly disappointed at the lack of hostilities between the supposed rivals, both perked up a bit at the mention of magic. They dropped in behind the two Big Folk. "My eyes have been—well, enhanced, I suppose, by all the charms I've used on them. Now everything that is even remotely enchanted glows ultraviolet."

Although none of the other three understood the word 'ultraviolet', they got the main idea. Mostly.

"You, for example," Glorfindel glanced at her warily as she waved a hand airily in his direction. "I don't suppose I really need to turn you purple, since you already glow a bit. All elves do."

He winced. Of all colors, purple?

Hermione chuckled at the look on his face.

"I was _joking_, darling." He frowned at her. "People don't glow, unless they have charms applied to them."

"What about those of us that are just charm-_ing_?" He asked innocently.

She rolled her eyes. "That is one of the _worst_ jokes I have heard from you in a very long time, Master Balrog-slayer."

Glorfindel groaned. "I thought you'd stopped calling me that!"

"What's a Balrog?" Asked Merry, stepping up to walk between them. The Elf opened his mouth to explain, but a suddenly grave Hermione preempted him.

"You'll find out soon enough." The little Hobbit looked up at her questioningly, but then Pippin (who had stopped paying attention to the conversation ever since he'd first heard his stomach grumble) grabbed his arm and muttered something involving the word 'food'.

"There is nothing of that age left in this world but Sauron." Glorfindel said firmly, staring at his companion. She wouldn't meet his eyes. "Isn't there?"

"Right." She agreed halfheartedly, and strode off down the hall, leaving the Elf standing alone with a pile of dusty clothes. He watched Hermione turn a corner, then took off after her.

* * *

The Council of Elrond was supposedly made up of the most important people on the entire continent. They were sitting stiffly in a semi-circle, occasionally glancing around and waiting for Elrond to show up.

Hermione, on the other hand, was sitting on a wall, drinking out of a Styrofoam cup filled with some unfamiliar liquid and studying the latest issue of _Experimental Charms._ (It was a Cappuccino from Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks was still around.) Ordinarily, she would be wary about showing that kind of reading material off around muggles, but they already knew she was a witch and couldn't read the English alphabet anyway.

It was fascinating what wizards had to do, nowadays. They didn't have much power: certainly enough to get them through seven years of schooling at Hogwarts, but nothing compared to say, the Aurors of her day. As a result, they had to be much more imaginative when using magic.

Elrond arrived with very little ceremony, and pulled Hermione off of the wall with an equal lack of pomp and circumstance. He pushed her towards a chair; she gave him a rebellious look, folded her magazine with great dignity, and stood behind Glorfindel. He shook his head—that is, both Elrond and Glorfindel shook their heads.

Hermione didn't pay much attention to what was going on. She knew most of it by heart. She only began to pay attention when Frodo laid out the Ring. She could hear it calling to her, just barely, and, out of curiosity, lowered her Occlumency shields just the slightest bit. The Ring took this as weakness and immediately attacked her mind.

She gasped and staggered slightly, slamming her shields back down and staring at the Ring in shock before narrowing her eyes and reaching a hand inside her robes to finger her wand. Glorfindel twisted slightly to look up at her in concern. She glanced down at him and shook her head minutely.

"Hermione?" Elrond looked at her. Boromir was babbling on about using the Ring for Gondor. Hermione shook her head. What an idiotic idea… he might have helped the Mischief Makers with their planning for Glorfindel (the urge to cackle popped up quite suddenly) but he was still going to need some serious character development before she saved his life.

"Give me a moment," she muttered to Elrond and pulled Bellatrix's wand out. She pointed it at the dais and began muttering in Latin under her breath. Tiny runes began to appear, glowing just the faintest bit with—Glorfindel cringed slightly—_purple_.

Hermione was so engrossed in her work that she didn't notice the Black Speech, nor Gimli unsheathing his ax and running up to the dais, until it was too late.

"No!" She shouted with Elrond and Gandalf. It was too late. The ax shattered and the dwarf was thrown backwards.

Elrond stepped forward.

"The Ring cannot be destroyed by any means we here possess," he said, but they could practically _feel_ the "except" coming, and soon enough, "But perhaps our guest from afar, Lady Hermione, might attempt the task with a secret art of her people."

Gimli grumbled, but took his seat again as Elrond turned to Hermione. She had finished with her Runic warding and took a deep breath.

"Stand back," she told the group. "Fiendfyre's tricky. I've done the best protective warding I can—which I must say is better than you could've gotten from Merlin himself—but who knows if it'll be enough?"

They didn't really understand anything she said, but followed Elrond, the twins, Glorfindel and Gandalf as they carefully moved away.

Hermione took a deep breath and summoned as much magic as she could. Her affinity had always been for fire; in this case, it wouldn't be the summoning that was hard, but the control.

All at once, she pointed her wand towards the dais and the fire positively _flowed _out and into the ward. She focused her will on it, narrowing her eyes. Her hair lifted up slightly as though in a wind, and her robes billowed.

_The Ring. Attack the Ring._

The fire obeyed her slowly, reluctantly ceasing its attempts to escape the protective circle. It latched on to the Ring and _roared_, strange shapes forming and unforming.

In the end, it didn't even soften the metal.

Hermione pulled the oxygen out of the protective barrier and the Fiendfyre died. She waited a few moments for the heat to fade away into the air, and then removed the protective runes as well.

"It didn't work." No one was speaking so Elrohir felt he had better mention the fact in case they had missed it. He managed to shake his father out of his stupor.

"The Ring must be destroyed in the same place in which it was made," he announced dramatically. "It must be thrown into the fires of Mount Doom!"

Hermione sat back on the wall with her cappuccino and examined her fingernails, zoning out of the conversation. She looked up when Glorfindel poked her and saw several people standing together and Elrond staring at her expectantly.

"Oh, well, of course I'm going along," she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She could tell that Aragorn was going to argue so she just picked up her magazine and jumped over the low wall. As she walked away, she reached inside her robes to put away the magazine. It brushed against the letter, still sealed.

She frowned.

The Council of Elrond was concluded.

* * *

It was almost time for the Fellowship to leave, and thus almost Christmas-time.

Hermione was, as her parents had raised her to be, a devout Christian, and so it was that the Men, Dwarf, and Hobbits who were accompanying the Ring-bearer to Mount Doom found themselves in the midst of a Yule feast. Information Pippin had obtained from the twins as they carried a huge, unfamiliar tree into the hall indicated it was one of Hermione's religious holidays, and that no, they didn't really understand either because this was the first time she had stayed in Rivendell this time of the year.

"But the Valar are the only gods and goddesses in this world." Protested Sam to the tapestry that Lord Elrond was hiding behin, his face scrunched up in confusion.

"In _this_ world, Master Samwise," The woman herself informed him as she strode by with an armful of tinsel.

"Well," Elrond commented, popping out from behind the fabric with a raised eyebrow. "I believe that's the closest she's ever gotten to telling anyone where she's really from. Congratulations, Master Gamgee."

Sam remained in that spot about fifteen minutes after the Elf-lord had left, brow furrowed, trying his hardest to figure out why Elrond had told him to say that, why Hermione had responded the way she had, and just what, exactly, was going on.

"So… this is a holiday to celebrate the birth of your God's son on earth." Glorfindel summarized quizzically. Hermione nodded, reaching up to put the last glass ball on the Christmas tree. The Elf shrugged. "At least you give out presents."

She frowned at him.

"It's not about the presents. It's about being together with family and friends, and celebrating the birth of the savior."

"Varda forgive me," Glorfindel muttered. Hermione poked him with one end of an oddly-shaped package labeled "for Erestor." "What's that?"

"A broomstick."

He raised an eyebrow, and she rolled her eyes. "It flies."

"A flying… broomstick." Hermione rolled her eyes again.

"My people use… used it to play a game called 'Quidditch'. I hated riding on a broom, but I figure it might be a good way to get Erestor out and around a bit."

You didn't defeat a Balrog unless you were at least marginally clever, so Glorfindel picked up on the past tense of the verb.

Of course, cleverness didn't necessarily mean tact.

"What do you mean, 'used'?" He asked bluntly.

Luckily, it wasn't much of a sensitive topic.

"Those of us with magic intermarried with those that didn't have magic until they didn't have enough power to create something like a broomstick anymore. It took me _forever_ to figure out how to charm this thing to fly." She glared at it for a moment. "Anyway, they can still do most other minor spells, although things like the Killing Curse is out because they require far more power than my people ha—"

"The _Killing Curse!_" Hermione glanced up to see Glorfindel's stricken face and sighed.

"Damn," She looked away. "The incantation is 'Avada Kedavra,' and it produces a bolt of green light that separates a person's soul from their body, thus producing instant death. It does, however, require both power and the capacity to hate something with all of your soul. I could never use it, because I can't hate someone to that degree."

He let out a shaky breath, then asked jokingly, "You don't have any other nasty spells that I should know about, do you?"

"Well…" She debated internally.

"You've got to be kidding me." Glorfindel muttered (a few thousand years of Hermione's influence had propagated a few human mannerisms to the Elves, notable the twins, Elrond, Arwen, and the Balrog-slayer).

"There's the Imperious Curse, and others like it. It simply requires power—I'm not sure if they can still perform it or not. Perhaps the incantation has been lost… anyway, it forces the subject to do whatever the caster wants them to do. They would drown their own mother, unless they could shake it off. I can shake it off, and one of my childhood friends could, but he's long since gone six feet under."

She paused for a moment, remembering Harry. Thoughts of the latest pair of Potter twins made her shake her head before continuing with the last Unforgivable Curse.

"Then, finally, there's the Cruciatus Curse. It also requires hate to work, and causes the subject to feel unimaginable pain."

Glorfindel waited patiently for her to finish, but she only had one more bit of information to offer, in a quiet, somber voice.

"If you're kept under it long enough, you're driven insane."

The silence stretched on and the Elf had prayed to at least six of the Valar in penance for asking the question by the time Hermione spoke again.

"Of course, we also have spells for cleaning and healing and fixing and creating. The ones I told you are the three 'Unforgivable Curses'. I don't know what the law is concerning them now, but in my day if you used them, a Dementor sucked out your soul with a Kiss and you were left alive, but without thoughts or feelings, in Azkaban prison, on the cold North Sea."

"Well, they were imaginative, if nothing else." Glorfindel offered shakily.

Hermione let out a sudden laugh. "Oh, of course! We had Quidditch for sports and Exploding Snap, Wizard's Chess—they spoke—and Self-Shuffling Cards for games. If you wanted to know where someone was all the time, you bought a special clock and paid to have their names added to one of the hands. 'Mortal danger', 'work', 'travel', 'school', 'shopping', 'home', and 'out' were the standard options, as I recall."

He made a contemplative noise, and she looked at him shrewdly, correctly guessing that he was thinking of what Elrond would do to get his hands on one of those clocks.

"And then, of course, if you died the hand with your name on it turned black." She stared off into space, lost in memories. Glorfindel rolled his eyes; trust Hermione to ruin the mood.

"Weren't you going to play some music for us?" He reminded her, and she started suddenly.

"Ah, bugger. I need to go find my hymnal." Glorfindel watched, with an expression somewhat similar to that of a puppy who is watching his master driving away without him. Hermione noted the face he was making and rolled her eyes. "Sorry, but only Gandalf and I are allowed to go to my country."

"Along with the people already there, who aren't allowed to come here," Glorfindel finished for her, having long since memorized her response. "Go on. I'll just hide until the twins stop stalking me with that net of tinsel."

Hermione chuckled and turned on her heel, disapparating back into the forest. Once there, she glanced around, then reached under the neck of her robes and grabbed an amulet. Muttering the password ("Never tickle a sleeping dragon."), she turned on her heel again and reappeared in her office in the Department of Mysteries.

She glanced around quickly to make sure nothing had been disturbed, then sat down behind her desk and pulled the letter out of a pocket. Yule was a busy time—she had to transfigure Christmas tree ornaments and conjure tinsel because you couldn't transfigure it and then she had to _find_ a tree to put the bloody things _on_—

But really she had just been avoiding it. She stared down at the too-familiar handwriting and felt tears rise. He had been her best friend; her first friend. He'd saved her life so many times she lost count.

She hadn't thought about Harry Potter in years. Not since she had met the latest set of Potter twins seventy years ago.

Hermione tapped the envelope with her wand. It unfurled. Yellowed, muggle paper floated out and, hovering in front of her, unfolded itself.

_**Dear Hermione,**_

Under this she could see several scribbled and unreadable beginnings.

_**It's taken so long to find you and now I don't even know what to say. I suppose I should start with the beginning. The Unspeakables. Of course, they obliviated Ron and Ginny and Neville and everyone when you started working for them, but not me. I pulled Boy-Who-Lived status and threatened to move to Australia and take over the government and declare war on Britain if they tried to make me forget you.**_

Hermione chuckled. She and Harry had always been close. Watched each other's backs. She had sometimes wondered why their relationship never took the final step into dating, but never dwelled on it for very long. She had liked Ron and he had loved Ginny. Harry was her brother and she was his sister.

_**They tried to give Crookshanks to Ginny. She didn't like that very much and neither did he, really. So I took him in. We had a blazing row about it. (Don't worry; that wasn't the first or the last and it wasn't the reason we finally just gave up on each other, in the end.)**_

_**Anyway, I spoke to the Unspeakables and promised them I would never try to track you down. Unfortunately, there have been a somewhat unexpected series of events that have forced me to search you out.**_

Hermione frowned, wondering for the first time why the Unspeakables hadn't bothered to tell her that someone she knew was still aware of her existence. Oh, what she would have given to be able to speak to Harry during the first century of her immortality!

_**I told the world that Voldemort was dead. At the time, I believed it was true. But, Hermione, I no longer believe that Horcruxes were the only things keeping Voldemort alive.**_

_**If they were, then when I killed Quirrel, the piece of Voldemort's soul embedded in him should have also died, and one of his other Horcruxes should have become active. But he started with six Horcruxes when he tried to kill me, then seven when he failed, but even after the curse rebounded and destroyed his body, **__**he still had seven Horcruxes plus one piece of soul from that destroyed body**__**. Returning to my initial point, when I destroyed Quirrel, that should have also killed the eighth piece of soul from his original body: it didn't. Taken by itself, this is not very convincing evidence—after all, we don't really know how a Horcrux works, do we? We just destroyed them.**_

_**I'm just putting off the inevitable. Remember when I had visions all through fifth year? I can still remember you telling me to go to Dumbledore. I wish he was here now. I wish I could tell this to him. Or to Ron. Or to you, in person, and get your advice, but by the time you read this, I will probably have already passed on.**_

Hermione frowned deeper. What Harry had just suggested was widely considered to be impossible, even in the current time. It was impossible to bind yourself to the earth unless you were the master of the Deathly Hallows. Voldemort had never had the Invisibility Cloak or true power over the wand, so that was out. She kept reading.

_**I know it sounds impossible, Hermione, but I've been having visions again. No one knows. I'm eighty-nine. Middle-aged for a wizard of my power. Ginny has long since gone off and gotten married; Ron and I still go out for drinks sometimes but he's busy with his own family. So I looked for you.**_

_**Please don't feel like the last option. You weren't. As soon as I got these, I knew I had to find you and ask for your help. But I figured out that I would never be able to get to you without the Department of Mysteries help, and I had given them a promise never to find you.**_

_**I found an old hedgewitch living in Russia, finally, who could actually send things to you. We sent you this letter, and the Invisibility Cloak. I don't know where the Resurrection Stone is and I don't care, but we also sent the pieces of the Elder Wand. I will die as its master and, once I am gone, you should be able to destroy it with Fiendfyre or use it. Whatever you want.**_

_**I'm delaying the inevitable again. This was the vision I had (and yes, it's real, not just some strange nightmare): Voldemort was in the mountains. Don't ask me which ones; I don't know. It was snowy. Maybe. I wasn't really paying much attention to the surroundings. I think he was at the mouth of a cave. He glanced around outside, then turned towards someone else—it was shadowy, but the figure just seemed to scream **__**danger**__** and I thought, if Voldemort ever had an equal in evil and power, then, well, this person is it. "It's too soon," said Voldemort. The figure kind of growled. It sounded like agreement. "We must return to our sleep until they are weak and powerless." "And then?" The shadowy person was a man**_**. **_**Even his voice was scary. "And then there will be prey for you, and weak half-bloods for me. You may do as you like with the mudbloods, and I will breed the half-bloods until they again produce suitably powerful offspring. I will rule Eurasia and Africa. You may do as you like with the Americas and Australia." The figure seemed to nod. I could tell the vision was fading. They turned away from the mouth of the cave and walked back inside and my vision turned with them and—oh, Hermione, there were so many of those figures, all in what seemed like sleep, just lying there and still looking so much more dangerous than even Bellatrix Lestrange plus Dobby on a cleaning spree plus Ginny when she's angry!**_

_**The vision faded away, but I didn't like what I saw. I read up on mountains. I found something about an extinct coven of vampires somewhere in the Himalayas. I'll be going to check them out as soon as the hedgewitch and I send this to you.**_

_**We don't know when on the timeline this will reach you, especially since the Unspeakables said that you would occasionally be in a different reality. I hope it gets there before Voldemort and his vampire coven wake up, or—well, or this letter won't have done any good, would it?**_

_**Hermione. I wish you were here with me. I wish I could hear you reassuring me, giving me a plan. Of course, I kind of have one, but I would feel much more comfortable with actively searching out a vampire coven if I had a Hermione-plan. Even if they are all in some kind of magical coma.**_

_**I miss you. I know you miss me, too. I wish I could have seen you one more time before I go off on this half-brained adventure. I know what you're thinking: bring other people with you! And I am. Ron, Ginny (but not their spouses), Neville, Luna, Seamus, a squad of Aurors (although they don't really know it yet), the best hitwizards I could hire with this dangerous of a job, the goblins (with the promise that I would change my will to leave all goblin-made artifacts to Gringott's after my death), Firenze—hell, even Winky agreed to come along.**_

_**I'm hysterical. I'm probably going to die. Why does this feel so familiar?**_

_**Goodbye, Hermione. I hope this reaches you in time.**_

_**Love,**_

_**Harry Potter**_

Hermione sat back in her chair. Her magical control over the letter disappeared and it fluttered gently down to the ground. She felt like the air was ten times heavier than usual; she struggled to breathe and closed her eyes.

In this situation, there was really only one thing to say. She opened her eyes.

"Bugger."

* * *

**Ever since I wrote that title I've been humming Snape's part in "The Mysterious Ticking Noise." Honestly. I'd rather have Miley Cyrus stuck in my head.**

**No, actually. I take that back.**

**Mini-rant: Okay, does anyone else have a problem with not being able to indent? Because I was having fits over formatting the letter, and I'm still not really happy with it! I tried just using italics, but it ended up looking too similar to Hermione's narrative, so I added the bold. But now it looks too different.**

**Maybe I'm just hard to please. Still, I don't think it would be too much to ask if we could have maybe an inch indent in some parts of the story.**

**ORIGINAL AUTHOR'S NOTE FOR THIS CHAPTER:**** Yes, I am still alive. Yes, I am continuing this story. No, I haven't the foggiest idea of where I wanted it to go back when I wrote the first three chapters. I seem to have misplaced the outline (I **_**knew**_** I should have actually typed it instead of just putting it in some generic notebook…), if I ever had one, but I think I know where I want it to go now. It's currently looking a little bleak for Hermione, but I'm also foreseeing a sequel, if I ever manage to finish this story, so never fear.**

**Anyway, Glorfindel is really begging to be with Hermione right now, but so many people voted Legolas on the poll on my page (hint, hint) that I feel obligated to throw something about them in, too.**

**Honestly. I thought other people were just as sick as I was about sticking random girls with an elf prince. Eh, I'm not really as bitter as I sounded just now, though, so I will try to give you something. Glorfy might get a bit jealous, though.**

**Anyway, next chapter is already under construction. Hopefully this eleven-page, over-4,000-word monster makes up a bit for the long wait. Maybe?**

**I'm just going to leave now before you start throwing rotten vegetables…**

**Thanks for reading and happy 2012!**


	5. A Prank within a Prank

**Disclaimer: Didn't we decide that this is unnecessary? So why are you still following me around like some lost hobbit?**

**Posted: 1/27/2012**

**Words: 4,767**

**Death Eaters and/or vampires: Happily, 0. And if you review at the end then I won't send you any.**

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**Dedication: To ****LeaFairy124****, for a beautifully long and thoughtful review! I won't answer your questions via PM, but rather attempt to do so through edits and future chapters (clears up questions for other readers that way, too). Drop me a sentence or so at the end; if you're still confused, then I still have work to do! **

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**5: Love is in the air. Or, possibly, tied to a tree. **

* * *

Hermione stared at her desk for a long time, pondering Harry's letter. More specifically, the part of Harry's letter where he said that VOLDEMORT WAS NOT DEAD.

She wanted to scream. Instead she focused on the part of the letter that was making her logical mind tie itself into frustrated knots of confusion.

Vampires, you see, had long been extinct; a fading legend when she had started school. Voldemort had attempted to find them, of course, in the early years of his search for immortality. It was widely assumed that he had never found them because THEY WERE ALL DEAD.

Hermione flicked her wand up and began drawing a shining purple diagram in midair.

There were three things that could have happened when Voldemort found the vampires. One: He found them after he had made his Horcruxes and was already tied to the earth. Two: The vampires had refused to change him because he was a psychopath. Three: Voldemort hadn't wanted to become a vampire because he hated the idea of being dependent on blood.

She frowned at the diagram before waving a hand through option number two. It seemed unlikely, seeing how the vampires had, according to Harry, helped him eventually.

Her blood froze in her veins as she considered a fourth option: Voldemort was a vampire and had simply hidden his condition from everyone.

It seemed unlikely. He had been brilliantly cunning and intelligent during his school years and would have known that it would be best to hide vampirism (if he was infected). The Ministry would have automatically lambasted him and the traditionalist pureblood families he was in the process of beating into submission would certainly have objected to any such treatment by a magical _creature_.

On the other hand, there were the discrepancies that Harry had pointed out in his letter. The facts led Hermione to the conclusion that the Horcruxes had been only a failsafe. An extra measure in case something else failed. Why else would two 17-year-olds and an 18-year-old have been able to destroy all seven so easily (relatively speaking)? He had had the diary practically handed to them on a platter, for crying out loud.

Perhaps there was some in-between option that she wasn't aware of—some vampiric rite that would give Voldemort everlasting life. Or something. She'd have to research it.

That, however, would require an extensive time commitment that Hermione didn't have at the moment, since the twins were probably still stalking Glorfindel (the poor bastard) and he was probably already wondering where she was.

Hermione sighed and rummaged around her shelves, an exercise that, in a small office, usually takes all of ten minutes. These particular shelves, however, had been enlarged and expanded so many times as to be nearly infinite, and Hermione spent at least half an hour trying to go through them before she muttered and oath and repeated Ron's words from several lifetimes ago: "Honestly, Hermione, are you a witch or aren't you?"

She flicked her wrist and summoned the book before making her way briskly out of the office, locking the door behind her and making her way to the Entry Room.

Hermione had first seen the room way back when, while she was still quite literally high on life. Gandalf had led her to the room and explained why it was there.

As previously established, however, Gandalf's lectures are painstakingly detailed and nauseatingly long, so what follows is Hermione's summary of what he said.

"_There is no place like this in Arda," mused Hermione. "You're saying that the fundamental construction of our worlds is different, so what is needed to leave this world is different than what is needed to leave Arda."_

"_Yes," replied Gandalf. "And even if they were not different, this room would still be necessary."_

"_Because if Sauron actually managed to hide his plans, get far enough into the Void without you noticing, get past you after you _did_ notice—even though forcing his way through would weaken him enough to make you more powerful—then this would force him to manifest in the room."_

"_Close," Gandalf replied. "You will find, however, that you will appear in your office much more often than you appear in this room. That is because your office will be more familiar to you. You know what it looks like, what it feels like—everything about it. It is similar to Apparation in that way. If your office was in Australia, however, you would end up in this room, because, despite your familiarity with different surroundings, the room is made to attract—new arrivals, for lack of a better term."_

"_And since Sauron has never been to this world, he will be forced into this—Great Merlin! Not even Fawkes would be able to get out of here!"_

_Gandalf smiled in a distinctly self-satisfied way._

No one was there and no one had tried to get in. While in her world, Hermione was 'tied' to the room—she would know if it became occupied, because that was how the magical bond worked.

When they left that world for Middle Earth, however, their link to the room was gone. Hermione had eventually gotten good enough at the mind arts that she could leave a part of her awareness behind in the Void for a while. It was a kind of rudimentary warning system that lingered on the 'Middle Earth' end of the Void. In this case, however, Hermione and Gandalf knew exactly what Sauron was doing and planning and thus had no worry of him sneaking through the Void while they were gone.

The room was covered with nothing more than a standard pentagram, drawn several times over on the floor, walls, and ceiling. The plants and birds that habituated the room lent extra power to the travel wards from the life forces. PETA would probably have called it unethical, but nothing died and they seemed happy enough to Hermione so she didn't cause a fuss.

She had come a long way since S.P.E.W.

The departure wasn't all that difficult: stand in one particular pentagram, catch a bird, stick it in a Rune-covered cage, hold the amulet (a chunk of obsidian tied to a thin Elfin rope) and Disapparate.

Hermione reappeared in the forest and glanced around instinctively. No one was there. She could probably have explained her appearance away as normal Apparation, but anyone who knew her well would know that Apparation didn't usually cause loud squawking noises or the appearance of the smoldering leaves of a nonnative plant.

* * *

"Did you find a hymnal, then?" Glorfindel asked as Hermione tried to sneak up on him. She pouted and lowered the holly branch.

"Yes," she replied, somewhat sourly, and put the branch on the huge mantel above the fireplace the Elf was currently trying to light. She nudged him backwards with the toe of her suede boot and flicked a finger at the fireplace. A blaze of orange and yellow flared up towards her.

Glorfindel glared up at her from his place on the floor.

"Someone's grumpy," he said, crossing his arms. He looked like an irritated cherub.

"Have you seen Gandalf?" Hermione asked, ignoring his comment.

"No," he said, standing up. Her eyebrow twitched and she got the distinct impression that he was lying. She let him walk away anyway (she was already plotting revenge and mentally moved up the timeline for the MMR's next prank) and found the twins.

"Hey." They each thrust something behind their backs and turned to her with wide eyes. She examined their expressions critically. "No, it's too innocent. Look."

She demonstrated the patented "I-know-something-about-it-because-I'm-Hermione-but-I-didn't-actually-do-it-and-I'm-not-going-to-tell-you-anything" look. They looked somewhat awed.

"Why did you come looking for us?" Elrohir asked.

"D'you know where Gandalf is?"

"Try the library," suggested Elladen. As Hermione turned away they pulled out the things they had had behind their backs and continued their huddled conference.

"Gandalf."

The old wizard turned around at the sound of his name.

"Hermione." He noted the pinched expression on her face. She handed him the letter and kept walking. "Where are you going?"

"Stress relief," she said mildly, twirling her wand. "You'll probably be able to find me relatively easily once you've read that."

Gandalf looked down at the letter with a furrowed brow and hurried off towards his study.

* * *

"Hermione what in the name of the Valar is this—this Harry Potter person—going on about?"

Hermione bit back a shriek and tried to disguise her surprised jump as a fluid turning motion. She was only about 60% successful.

"Good God, Gandalf, don't _do_ that; who knows what my heart condition is now that I'm almost four _ages_ old, it's not—"

"Hermione!" He shouted and waved the letter in her face. "This is serious!"

"I was being serious," she muttered stubbornly. "I think the contents of the letter should be perfectly clear. Harry was under the impression that Voldemort had put himself into some kind of suspended animation."

"You don't believe him, then?" Gandalf asked, relaxing somewhat. She looked at him, offended.

"Of course I believe him! Harry doesn't lie. And I trust him to recognize a true vision from a nightmare." She turned towards the pieces of dust where there had once been a small tool shed and flicked her wand at them. They began to slowly reassemble as she continued speaking. "Voldemort is not dead. And the more I think about it, the more I wonder why I believed he was gone before.

**[1]**"He walked right up to Hogwarts with a misbehaving wand and maybe forty soldiers and thirty werewolves? Plus what, five giants? This little army was up against the Auror force (shall we estimate that around forty?), the D.A. (closer to sixty), the Order of the Phoenix (closer to twenty) and the Hogwarts staff (ten). That's 80, counting Voldemort himself as five people, versus 130, not counting any students not in the D.A. or citizens of Hogsmeade.

"Voldemort, however, knew that his wand was not functioning properly. That takes his five out of the fight, down to 75. Then we have Snape, whom he killed, and we're down to 74. Then there's the Malfoys—he was a master Legilimens, there's no way he wouldn't know that they'd abandon him at the first sign of trouble. The same with the Wilkins, the Blaises and the Notts. That's another twelve out and his side is down to 62. 62 of his versus 130 of ours; worse odds than 1:2 of winning! No, he must have known and been planning something."

"And what better way of disappearing than faking his own death?" Gandalf mused, thinking it over. "This still doesn't solve our problem."

"I haven't heard anything about a new Dark Lord," Hermione offered.

"Hmm. When will he wake up?"

"Well… he says, 'We must return to our sleep until they are weak and powerless.'" Hermione offered, and closed her eyes in dismay. "Which would be right about now."

"Your people are weak and powerless?" Gandalf raised his eyebrows. He hadn't spent much time in her world lately. She hadn't either, to tell you the truth.

"Almost as much as you can be and still have magic. They don't differentiate between the wizarding world and the muggle world anymore. Wizarding kind tends to live or move to certain countries and congregate, and the muggles keep a watch over them, but they can't do much more than light a candle nowadays."

"Time for him to wake up now, then?"

Hermione opened her eyes into a level stare, directed at a tree slightly above Gandalf's left shoulder.

"If Harry's right, and if nothing's gone wrong, and that part of the Himalayas hasn't been civilized and they haven't been discovered and destroyed," she paused and took a deep breath. "Then, well, yes. Time for him to wake up."

He took a deep breath.

"Before you say it, no I am not going to leave Arda just so I can worry myself to death waiting for something that might not actually happen." Hermione told him in one breath. He looked amused.

"That isn't what I was going to say. Mr. Potter mentioned that he would be sending you this Elder wand and a cloak…?"

"Yes, well, I've had the cloak for years now," she told him absentmindedly. "He left it to the Unspeakable department in his will. I suppose he knew it would somehow get to me."

"And the wand?" Gandalf asked.

"Nothing. I thought he had burned the pieces or given them to his son to take care of or something. I don't know." She turned away from him and flicked her hand back out at the shed. It exploded in a small indigo fireball. She flicked her wrist again. It reassembled itself. "Maybe he was going to send it after he visited the vampires, but he never got a chance."

"How did he die, then?"

"I don't know," she turned back to face him and he barely kept himself from flinching when she lifted a hand. She pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. "I was here. You were the one there. When I got back I checked the newspaper clippings but they didn't say much. Just that he had disappeared while on vacation in Russia, on a D.A. reunion. When they tried a magical search and didn't get any results, they declared him dead. I asked Fawkes to find him, myself, but he just made a sad little trill and sat there."

"Yes, I remember now," Gandalf said, thinking back. "They said he started in Egypt on a Nundu hunt."

Hermione giggled, her good mood somewhat restored.

"Yes, that sounds like Harry," she agreed. They began walking back towards the dining hall.

"What can we do about Voldemort?" Gandalf asked. Hermione held on to her good mood with sheer force of will.

"If he shows up again, I'll kill the bloody bastard myself." Her reply was made through gritted teeth. Gandalf didn't argue.

* * *

It was rare that Hermione and the twins kept something from one another. In fact, there were only two cases where it was so: When the twins were trying to spice up Hermione's life with a little romance, and when Hermione was planning something that she knew the twins would give away via their facial expressions.

(Her matchmaking for them was so obvious that she didn't bother to hide it. She would just point out an _elleth_ and the twins would know that they were going to end up in the _elleth_'s company too often to be considered coincidence.)

Thus Hermione really shouldn't have been surprised that when Glorfindel had finally been tied half-naked to a tree, she was locked in the courtyard with him.

"I'll get them for this one," she muttered, half-irritated and half-amused. They had, since the Council of Elrond, pushed her into a closet and thus a compromising position with Legolas, coerced her into sparring with Boromir, plastered her room with paintings of Faramir and even tried to lock her in a room with Aragorn.

She had allowed the first few because they were relatively harmless and, hey, who's to say she didn't enjoy spending time with attractive men? But when they tried their stunt with Aragorn, she just pulverized the door and walked out of the courtyard. No matter how many times she might steal Arwen's diary or turn her dresses tie-dye, it didn't change the fact that Aragorn was Arwen's and Arwen was Aragorn's.

Glorfindel groaned, drawing Hermione back into the present. He was still groggy from the potion-laced wine. She cackled quietly as she thought back to her masterful execution of the plan. He'd gotten complacent, thinking she was too busy to bother with childish jokes.

He evidently didn't realize Hermione's dedication to the memory of her friends. _Oh, Fred and George. Your legacy continues._

"Wha—?" The elf murmured in a strangled voice. Probably because there were ropes around his ribcage. "Hermione, what in the name of the Valar?"

Hermione rolled her eyes without looking at him and replied, "Can't you just say 'Damn it all to hell, Hermione,' like the rest of us?"

"Nobody says anything like that except for you," he shot back, regaining his wits. "Why are you here, anyway?"

Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"The twins and I have trapped you naked in a courtyard and you're worried about why I'm here?"

He shifted uncomfortably, although whether it was from the ropes or because of her question, she couldn't tell.

"I was worried that you might do something else," he replied, finally. "And I'm only half-naked, thank you very much."

"Yeah, because there's a great deal of difference between a half-naked elf lord and a fully-naked elf lord," said Hermione, turning to face him. Glorfindel stared back at her, and she suddenly had the feeling that she was the one tied to a tree.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

_That either way, this elf lord is far more attractive than he has any right to be? _Hermione snorted and waved a hand in the air, dismissing her earlier statement.

"Don't worry about it."

"No, really, tell me."

"Maybe later."

"It's not like we don't have time now."

"I'll tell you later."

"How much later?"

_Dammit, he knows me too well,_ thought Hermione, who had had, surprise, surprise, no intention of telling him anything.

"Later enough that you won't remember what I'm talking about."

"Can't we stop this immature argument?"

"Certainly."

They fell silent, staring at each other. Finally, Glorfindel opened his mouth.

"Aren't you going to—"

"No."

He gave her a dirty look.

"Could I finish please?"

She raised her eyebrows innocently, as if to say, _What, you think I would interrupt you? I would never be so plebian._

"As I was saying," he glared at her, "Aren't you going to leave me to my embarrassment?"

Hermione sighed and glanced over at the door. The twins had somehow obtained a magical locking mechanism (probably through Gandalf, the bastard) and although she could break through it, it would be difficult and Not Very Fun and Glorfindel would probably whine the whole time about what they had done to him. And in the mood he was in, he would probably spill the beans about apparation to Elrond if she tried it.

"Eh," she said eloquently, and sat down elegantly, conjuring a comfortable armchair to support her as she did so.

He raised a questioning eyebrow and she elaborated, thinking sullenly that it was a shame the twins weren't here because they would have understood exactly what she meant.

"Elrohir had the brilliant idea that it was time to try to set me up with someone again." After that whole situation with Celebrimbor, the maker of the Rings of Power and the last elf the twins had forced on her, well… they hadn't really tried since.

"And of course I was the first person they tried," Glorfindel said, radiating smugness.

Hermione tried to stifle her giggle, she really did, but it came out anyway.

"Actually, they tried Legolas first, then Boromir, then Faramir and even Aragorn before they got to you," she told him.

He looked somewhat disappointed.

"Why in the world did they think you would fall in love with one of the Second-born?"

Hermione shrugged.

"I suppose they figured that, if I hadn't fallen in love with anyone in Rivendell, and Legolas didn't work out, then I would be more receptive to a Man."

Glorfindel made a rude noise and appeared to be sulking. Hermione watched him for a while. Eventually, her finger twitched and the ropes binding him to the tree came undone. He fell (gracefully, of course, he was an elf) to the ground and staggered slightly, trying to regain normal blood flow around his ribcage.

When he had recovered, he asked, "What in the world did they expect to happen if I was going to be tied to a tree all night?"

"I'm not sure," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose slightly. "I think they were getting desperate. Maybe they thought you would seduce me into untying you?"

"And I obviously succeeded," he said, smirking and leaning against the tree.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I know you far too well to consider you seductive," she told him dismissively. This conversation was getting too personal for her liking.

"Oh really?" He had evidently taken that as a challenge. Hermione groaned inwardly. He began to step towards her.

Conveniently for Hermione, at that exact moment, there was a loud crack, and a small package appeared, sitting in her lap. Glorfindel leaned back against the tree, curious despite himself.

"Harry, I love you," Hermione muttered under her breath in Old English.

"I didn't know you could send things like that," Glorfindel said. Most of Middle Earth was ignorant as to Hermione's more interesting magical powers; she and Gandalf had decided that the less they knew, the better. At this point, however, Hermione trusted Glorfindel to keep calm when she explained things to him.

"They're called Portkeys, usually," she said absentmindedly, lifting the package and examining it from many angles. It was a long, thin rectangle, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. A piece of paper had been folded and stuck under the twine, labeled with her name. "This one, however, has come a very long way. I don't know how or what the process is even called."

She pulled out the note.

_**Hermione,**_

_**I hope you received my earlier letter. If you haven't, well, I'll summarize it for you now: I had a vision telling me that Voldemort is still alive and has allied himself with a strange group of people in a mountain range. I think that the group is a coven of vampires, believed extinct, in the Himalayas.**_

_**Ron, Ginny, and I went to check out the village at the foot of the mountain yesterday, while I left the pieces of the Elder wand with Neville and the Russian woman who helped me send this (apparently she is related to Gregorovitch).**_

_**Anyway, we found a heavily warded area near the top of the mountain. It seems like it leads into an elaborate cave system. We couldn't see inside and night was falling, so we returned to the village for the night.**_

_**The Russian woman has managed to reattach the pieces of the Elder wand. I haven't tried to use it; I don't want to do anything that might prompt Voldemort and his blood-sucking friends to wake up. The box should have arrived with this note. If it hasn't, then we have a serious problem.**_

_**Depending on when this reaches you, you should already have possession of the Invisibility Cloak. As I said in the last letter, I don't know where the Resurrection Stone is. You were with me when I threw it away, weren't you?**_

_**In any event, I hope you can do something to stop Voldemort and whatever he's planning. There have been many deadly Dark Lords in history (yes, I know, I actually did my research on this one), but Voldemort has definitely been the most dangerous. He's charismatic. When he wakes up again, as long as he manages to disguise that snake-face of his, he'll have no trouble winning over the population.**_

_**I miss you. Ron and Ginny would, too, if their memories hadn't been erased. Incidentally, I think they might be recovering. Erasing the memories of a whole world **__**and**__** destroying all of the paper records must have been difficult… I can't imagine how the Unspeakables succeeded. Anyway, Ron asked me today if I remembered saving a girl from a troll in our first year.**_

_**That still makes me laugh. And clean my wand.**_

_**Love,**_

_**Harry Potter**_

Hermione made a thoughtful noise and tapped the note against her mouth, as though that would divine some higher meaning from it. Glorfindel watched curiously.

Eventually, she refolded the note and placed it gently inside the pocket of her robes, next to the other letter from Harry. She then turned her attention to the package.

It was definitely wand-shaped. She examined it carefully for charms; to Glorfindel, it appeared as though her eyes were glowing purple and she checked over the package.

"What is that?"

Hermione looked up. He blinked in surprise at having the unnerving eyes directed right at him. Their normal brown shade was, in his mind, much prettier.

"I think it's a wand," she said, and vanished the twine with a wave of her wrist. Glorfindel made his way over to her armchair to watch as she proceeded to remove the brown paper. After checking it carefully for any further messages, Hermione vanished that too, and turned her attention to the box she had just uncovered.

"But you already have a wand, don't you?" He asked. Hermione had used it often in her first few visits with the Elves, while she was still learning the focus necessary for wandless magic.

Hermione made a thoughtful noise and opened the box. Sure enough, the Elder wand was there, lying on a velvet lining.

"My wand was dragon heartstring and vinewood. It was destroyed a long time ago; the reason I do so much wandless magic is that this blasted wand resists me like no other.

"But it's just a tool," he said, confused. "Like my sword. Haldir, for example, would not _like_ using my sword, but he could if he needed to. Why is that not the same for a wand?"

"Most wands are—were—used as magical foci. The average witch or wizard needs one to focus their raw magic into a useful spell. This is also the purpose of wand movement and incantations," she lectured. "Each wand is unique; made for one person only. It _may_ work for others as well, but it is always best to use the wand specially attuned to you."

"So your wand is unique?"

"Hmm," she hummed in agreement. "This wand is different. It gives its affinity to the witch or wizard that masters it—that is, the witch or wizard who defeats or kills its previous master."

"But why—?" Glorfindel cut himself off and turned, quite suddenly, cocking his head to the side in a 'hush-I'm-listening-to-something' motion. Hermione glanced around the courtyard and listened as well, wary.

Eventually, he shook his head and relaxed.

"The twins, trying to find out if they were successful."

Hermione smirked at the chance to play a prank back on her two surrogate brothers (her surrogate Harry-and-Ron, really). She pulled her wand out stealthily and wrote in the air.

_Are they still here?_

Glorfindel cocked his head to the side and listened before nodding. Hermione smirked dangerously, and he delighted in the knowledge that, for once, the expression was not directed at him.

She pulled out the Elder wand and contemplated it for a moment. Harry would definitely appreciate that its first use had been for a prank. She flicked it and set up a variation on a one-way silencing charm. It had been far too long since she had reminded the twins who was the master at practical jokes.**[2]**

The twins, who had stopped by to listen for progress in their secret plan, immediately flushed bright red, looked at each other in shock and horror, and hurried off towards their chambers.

Glorfindel, who heard them rushing away but nothing else, turned to Hermione (who was wearing her signature Cheshire grin).

"What—?"

"Don't worry about it."

"No, really, tell me."

"Maybe later."

"It's not like we don't have time now."

"I'll tell you later."

"How much later?"

Hermione suddenly blinked.

"Déjà vu, much?"

Glorfindel didn't understand the expression and so fell silent. Hermione conjured a pack of cards and taught him how to play Exploding Snap, and so they passed the rest of the night. At dawn, Hermione made him promise not to tell anyone that she had untied him (it would have ruined her reputation as a prankster!), then retied him and allowed the twins to "rescue" her.

Glorfindel couldn't figure out why the pair couldn't meet his or Hermione's eyes without stammering and turning red.

Hermione could barely keep a straight face around them.

Arwen adopted a knowingly superior expression whenever she saw Hermione and Glorfindel together.

Boromir was glad to hear of the Mischief Maker's success, although he did take to avoiding Glorfindel.

Elrond was oblivious.

Gandalf's eyes twinkled obscenely.

All too soon, it was time for the fellowship to depart.

* * *

**[1] This is AU. I know that the Final Battle wasn't like this in the books, but the concept of suspended animation Voldemort is obviously also AU, and this was necessary for the advancement of the story's plot. Deal with it.**

**[2] In case you didn't figure it out (I **_**was **_**rather vague), Hermione modified the silencing charm to emit noise instead of blocking it. Want to know what noises she created? In the interest of keeping this story T-rated, I'm afraid I can't explain any more than that.**


	6. The Fellowship Departs

**Disclaimer: Heh, the mentions of blood in this chapter are sure to get even you off your appetite, lost hobbit. Come to think of it, feeding you to a vampire would spare me your inane questions about ownership… **

**Posted: 1/29/2012**

**Words: 5,100**

**Pranks and/or cackling: Surprisingly, 0. But if you review I'll work harder on a new series of one-shots (see A/N below).**

* * *

**Interesting fact about the fellowship: Tolkien was originally going to send Glorfindel as the representative of the Elves and Durin son of Balin as the representative of the Dwarves. Legolas and Gimli weren't added into the story until much later. **

* * *

**6: The Fellowship Departs**

* * *

_Elrond: 'The Company of the Ring shall be Nine; and the Nine Walkers shall be set against the Nine Riders that are evil. With you and your faithful servant, Gandalf will go; for this shall be his great task, and maybe the end of his labours._

'_For the rest, they shall represent the other Free Peoples of the World: Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Legolas shall be for the Elves; and Gimli son of Glóin for the Dwarves. They are willing to go at least to the passes of the Mountains, and maybe beyond. For men you shall have Aragorn son of Arathorn, for the Ring of Isildur concerns him closely.'_

'…_I thought you were going to Minas Tirith with Boromir,' said Frodo._

'_I am,' said Aragorn. '…But your road and our road lie together for many hundreds of miles. Therefore Boromir will also be in the Company. He is a valiant man.'_

'_There remain two more to be found,' said Elrond. 'These I will consider. Of my household I may find some that it seems good to me to send.'_

from _The Fellowship of the Ring_, Book Two, Chapter 3: The Ring Goes South

* * *

"Nine Walkers for Nine Riders," mused Hermione, glancing around the teeming Hall of Fire. Gandalf, who was standing next to her, pulled a pipe from his mouth to reply.

"Boromir and Aragorn will be with us as long as they can before their road diverges to Minas Tirith. Legolas and Gimli will stay for as long as possible. Sam can hardly be separated from Frodo, and I will certainly be going."

"That's seven," Hermione said. "Plus Merry and Pippin—I think you're insane for letting them go, by the way; Pippin at least is too young—makes nine. But, as I've already said, I'm going along as well, and that makes ten."

"Yes," agreed Gandalf slowly. "Do you have a point?"

Hermione waved a hand, almost knocking the pipe from his grasp.

"Well, there's already going to be more of us than we planned. So why not let Elrond choose another of his own to go on the Quest?" It was widely if not openly acknowledged that Hermione was representing Rivendell.

"The group is too large already," the old man replied with finality, putting his pipe back in his mouth.

Hermione continued to argue.

"Come now," she said, turning to stare at him. "I can easily hide myself with means that Sauron would not understand, and Merry and Pippin really only count as half a person when it comes to hiding, because they're so small, so when you really think about it, we only have eight people counting me."

"Which means?" He asked around his pipe.

"Which means that we need another Walker!" Hermione finished triumphantly.

Gandalf let loose a long-suffering sigh and made his way over to Elrond, if only to get Hermione off his back. The latter seemed to be pleased. Hermione watched him begin searching the room—for whom, she hadn't the foggiest idea. It hardly mattered, as long as there was another Elf-lord accompanying Frodo. She had spent a long time in Middle Earth and had spent an almost equally long time worrying about the butterfly effect**[1]**.

"Worried about tomorrow?" A smooth voice said in her ear. For the second time that week, Hermione bit back a shriek and jolted into the air.

"Good God," she gasped, and glared at Glorfindel. He appeared to be slightly amused.

_Note to self: Leave purple dye for Asfaloth with the twins for after departure._

"No," she continued in a slightly more composed tone of voice. "I doubt anything will happen while we're within a week from Rivendell."

Her voice dropped and she glanced around the hall again, her gaze lingering on Gimli (he looked pained at being forced into the company of so many Elves).

"It's after we get to Moria that I'm worried about."

Glorfindel blinked.

"But you're not going to—"

"Ah, Lord Glorfindel," Elrond interrupted him. Hermione once again held back a jump of surprise and began mentally creating a new charm for the Elves. Bells, permanently attached to their feet? Or perhaps she could create some kind of mobile proximity ward? Her amulet would make a good anchor, if she could—

"Hermione?" She blinked and looked around to see that Elrond had left. "Did you hear any of that?"

"Er," she turned to Glorfindel, a faintly embarrassed look on her face. "No. Anything important?"

He sighed in amused exasperation (Hermione inspired the oddest mix of moods).

"I should say so," he informed her archly. "Gandalf has told Elrond that he may send another Walker and Elrond requested that I perform that duty."

Hermione felt like face-palming. _I should have seen this coming_.

"Of course," she said. "You should probably pack, then. We're leaving tomorrow."

"As you say," he replied, and, after a short bow, he made his way from the hall. Hermione watched him go until she heard Pippin shouting about a jig. She borrowed a fiddle from one of the Elves (who were trying to figure out just what a jig was, exactly) and with a raised brow and smirk, obliged him.**[2]**

* * *

Hermione was groggy when they left. She'd made the mistake of actually trying some of Gimli's Dwarvish ale, and had been sleeping off the hangover ever since she'd gone to bed at around four that morning. It was dusk, and she'd only been awake for about two hours.

The twins had been hovering around her door when she left the room, and they spent almost the entirety of those two hours retelling stories of their mischief-making in the now-empty Hall of Fire.

She really would miss those two rascals.

The blast of a horn woke her up far more than she wanted to have been woken up, and she turned to glare at Boromir. He gave her an apologetic look but nevertheless proclaimed, "Always I have let my horn cry at setting forth, and though thereafter we may walk in the shadows, I will not go forth as a thief in the night."**[3]**

Ignoring him, Hermione craned her neck to glare up towards the house, muttering under her breath, "Gandalf, you old bastard, hurry up! I'm cold."

A cloak settled around her shoulders, and she turned in surprise to see Arwen standing beside her. Her eyes were sad.

"I knew you would forget something," she told the witch, a chuckle hidden in her quiet tone. Hermione favored her with her first smile of the day.

"You know he's just being a stupid man," she muttered back in Quenyan. Arwen's eyes widened.

"How—?"

Hermione tapped the side of her nose, looking smug.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "The important part is, he loves you. But you know that already, don't you?"

Arwen smiled, finally a hint of relief entering her expression.

"Thank you, Hermione."

The witch smirked and glanced at Aragorn. He was watching the pair with no little concern.

"No problem."

"The time of departure is at hand!"

_Took you long enough, you wizened old warlock_. Hermione thought uncharitably as she stopped paying attention, drawing the cloak around her shoulders. Honestly, how had she forgotten something as important as a cloak?

* * *

It took them two weeks just to get to Eregion. Hermione felt like she was going to die of boredom. Glorfindel, who, of the company, knew her better than anyone except Gandalf, did his best to keep her amused.

Still, she had far too much time for thinking, and during the course of the two weeks, she realized something so extraordinarily obvious that she didn't understand how it hadn't blinded her.

"Apparation!" She shouted, quite suddenly. Gandalf turned towards her from where he was standing with Frodo, gazing out towards the mountains. Glorfindel started and began to understand how Hermione felt when an Elf walked up behind her.

"How the _hell_ didn't I think of that before?" She asked. The unenlightened glanced at each other in confusion. Glorfindel closed his eyes and lifted his head towards the heavens, feeling like an idiot, although (to be fair) Hermione rarely apparated while in Middle Earth. She preferred to travel with Gandalf, who disliked side-along apparation and she (supposedly) wasn't allowed to do it in Rivendell.

"Of course," said Gandalf, feeling old and forgetful. "If you can apparate to Mount Doom there is no need for the Quest. But are you certain it will work?"

Hermione frowned in surprise.

"I don't see why not."

"Have you ever seen Mount Doom?" He asked, his hopeful feeling slowly dissipating.

"Er, no, but if Boromir will allow it I can get an image from his mind of the gates of Mordor and then make short jumps from there."

She balked, however, at the idea of going that whole way for the first time with a hobbit attached.

Boromir was quite happy to help Hermione, although he didn't really understand what she was going to do until it was already done. By that time, Hermione had already left. She was soon standing directly before the Black Gates, cloaked in illusion, notice-me-not and confusion charms. She eyed the top of the gate warily, then apparated directly up to it. She landed on the outer edge, with barely an inch to spare between her heels and the open air.

_That's odd. I was aiming for the center_.

She took a step forward in an attempt to choose her next jump. When her foot reached the exact center of the gate, a malevolent red-violet ward sprang up. The next thing she knew, Hermione had been stripped of her charms and was flying backwards and out towards the ground.

She took a deep breath in and focused her mind as best she could before twisting into apparation.

Glorfindel gave an involuntary shout as Hermione reappeared just a few inches above the ground before slamming into it with no little force. He and Gandalf ran towards her.

"Holy son of a motherf***ing b****!" She said loudly, sitting up just as they got there. It wasn't often that Hermione Granger felt the need to curse, but when she did, she _did_. Gandalf and Glorfindel exchanged a glance.

Hermione stood up, wincing as she felt a pain in her foot, where her toe and run into the ward. Come to think of it, her arm hurt as well.

"Hermione!" Pippin said, eyes wide as he approached her. "You're bleeding!"

She glanced down to her left and noted a long, shallow gash along her forearm.

"I splinched myself after a _goddamn ward_ threw me off of the top of the Black Gates," she said, directing her words towards Gandalf. The old man look shocked.

"How—?" He appeared unable to finish his question.

"I don't know," Hermione hissed angrily as she conjured white bandages to wrap around her arm. "But I'm going to bloody well find out."

She finished with the bandages and tucked her wand back up her sleeve before grasping the amulet.

"You're going back to the Ministry?" Gandalf asked in surprise.

"It's high time I researched that letter," she told him gravely. "I had hoped that Harry dealt with the problem, but it is evident to me now that he did not."

"What in the name of Varda is going on?" Hermione, Gandalf, and Glorfindel turned to stare at the normally unflappable Elf. He turned slightly pink.

Hermione answered.

"To understand this story, you first have to understand something very important. My people have magic. At the time of my birth, we were hiding our existence from the rest of the citizens of the country, who had no magic.

"Among the magical peoples, there had long been a feud between those 'pure of blood,' who had only magical ancestry, and those like myself, whose parents had no magic at all."

She paused to make sure they were following her narration.

"When I was eleven, I found out that I could do magic, and that it had to be trained lest it become dangerous. I became best friends with Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley.

"Harry's parents had been killed when he a baby, by a Dark Lord who believed that only the 'pure,' magical folk should inhabit our land. Something happened that night when he tried to kill Harry, and the Dark Lord disappeared."

Pippin smiled, evidently hoping that this was the end of the story.

"When I was fifteen, the Dark Lord came back. Harry, Ron and I learned that he had split his soul into seven pieces, through murder. By the time I was eighteen, we had destroyed the pieces and Harry had killed Voldemort."

Now Merry was grinning too, happy with the story.

"At least, so we thought. I received a letter not too long ago from Harry."

"Is he immortal too, then?" Pippin interrupted.

Hermione glanced at him in amusement, her anger having faded somewhat.

"No. That's why I was so surprised. You see, I must pass through the Void to reach this place from my home. Harry was there while I was here, and when he sent the letter, it was delayed."

Pippin nodded.

"In any event, Harry's letter leads me to believe that the Dark Lord, Voldemort, was not dead but in an enchanted sleep. He said that he will wake up when can easily conquer my people; when their magic has faded."

"Magic does not fade," Aragorn spoke up firmly. Hermione smiled bitterly.

"Perhaps I should use a different phrase. There is only a finite amount of magic in the world. As magical folk die, their magic is released back into the natural circle, and is reborn with some other magical person. The nature of this cycle means that my people's birth and death rates were low.

"Modern technology, however, allowed more and more of them to be born and keeps the elder folk alive longer. There are so many who possess magic that very few of them can do anything with it. The problem is aggravated by Voldemort's sleep with his followers. They have removed a sizable chunk of magic from the natural cycle."

She fell silent for a while.

"You believe he has woken?" Gandalf asked quietly.

"I don't know," Hermione said, frowning. "I don't know how he could have possibly found out about this world."

She turned slightly, lowering her voice and directing her words to Gandalf and Glorfindel only.

"Gandalf, you know how to reach my home and find me, if needs be." He nodded and she turned her full attention to the Elf, pulling Bellatrix's wand from her pocket. Summoning anchors were easier to make if the object was already infused with magic. She handed it to him, then tugged the Elder wand out of her sleeve, waving it over the other wand. "This will summon me if I am needed. If someone shows up and introduces themselves as a _Death Eater_, summon me immediately. I don't care how harmless they look."

Glorfindel nodded, repeating the foreign words in his mind. _Death Eater._

"How does it work?"

"Focus on your need and say the password: Never tickle a sleeping dragon."

He raised an eyebrow and she smiled slightly despite herself.

"It's not likely to come up in ordinary conversation."

"Where will you go?" Gandalf asked.

"I'll start with my little museum," she told him, sticking the Elder wand up her sleeve.

"But you haven't been there in an age!" He exclaimed. "How do you know it hasn't been found?"

He barely caught her reply as she disappeared.

"Goblin wards."

The rest of the fellowship was left standing in the woods, staring through the space Hermione had occupied to the Misty Mountains.

* * *

The next stage of the Fellowship's journey was almost laughably easy. They were on edge for a while, but it is a proven fact that no one can sustain a state of pure terror for very long, so they eventually regressed into normal apprehension.

Of the group, it was Gandalf and Glorfindel who remained the most worried—they were the only ones who knew about the killing curse, after all. Gandalf, especially, sat puffing on his pipe for a long while, contemplating the implications of the ward on the Black Gates.

And now Hermione had gone home, to her "little museum." After she had heard about Harry's disappearance, Hermione had had a minor panic attack, and bought or otherwise obtained everything important to him before consolidating it in some remote place that she only ever called the "little museum." He had gotten the impression that Harry's wand and personal effects were not the only items she kept secreted away there, wherever it was.

If there was anywhere left on Earth with reliable information or clues to the events that transpired so long ago, it would be there, hidden among old newspapers and history books.

"I don't understand what's going on."

Gandalf turned his head to see young Frodo standing before him, somewhat nervously.

"Where did Hermione go? Why did she come back injured? And why did she leave again?"

The wizard glanced over at the fire. Everyone except for Glorfindel was shooting him curious glances. He sighed, stood, and made his way towards the small group. Frodo followed him.

"Voldemort is very dangerous," Gandalf began, lighting his pipe. "It was a shock for Hermione and me to learn that he was still alive."

He fell silent, and the others began to worry that he would not continue.

"She found the first letter hidden in a corner of Rivendell—she believes it arrived there while she was staying in the room, but some error of the spell casting meant that it ended up hidden in the closet." He shook his head to clear it of such inconsequential thoughts.

"The letter was from her friend Harry Potter, who disappeared two thousand years ago and is believed dead. Mister Potter told her that he had had a vision of Voldemort's coming—such things are common in her land—and was going to investigate it."

He fell silent again. Gimli broke the silence.

"And what happened to him, then?" He asked gruffly. "It seems to me that this whole thing should've been resolved a long time ago."

Gandalf took a few puffs of his pipe before he answered.

"We don't know what happened to Mister Potter. Hermione investigated it as thoroughly as possible, but found no sign as to the tragedy that befell him."

"Tragedy?" Aragorn raised an eyebrow.

"Her people have created spells for such things," Gandalf replied.

"Yes," interjected Glorfindel. "She told me there were strange clocks that told not of the time, but of a person's location. When someone died, the hand upon which their name was writ turned black."

Gandalf nodded to confirm his statement.

"There are many types of magical creatures in her world. From the knowledge we have of Mister Potter's visions, we believe that Voldemort allied himself with vampires."

The rest of the group felt chills as they heard the word, though they did not know what it meant. Gandalf required additional time to fortify himself before explaining.

"Vampirism is a disease. It will make the victim immortal and nearly unbeatable, but at the cost of their sanity or their values." He paused to glance around at them, trying to recall everything he knew about vampires. "They neither eat nor drink anything but warm blood. They crave it; they cannot live without it, or they will go mad."

"Blood of an animal, you mean, surely," Glorfindel said, stricken and slightly nauseas. Gandalf shook his head slowly.

"The blood of humans. They may subsist on blood of animals, but it will not serve them well; eventually, they must feed upon a sentient being, or they go mad."

Glorfindel glanced at Legolas, who appeared to be just a shocked and greenish-colored as he was.

Gandalf allowed them a moment to recover before he continued.

"Voldemort knew that he would not be able to accomplish his goals—that is, creating a world for magical peoples alone, devoid of all mundane folk—while the memory of his defeat at the hands of Harry Potter was still alive. So he found a group of allies powerful enough to protect him—or perhaps he is one of them—and they all put themselves to sleep.

"Mister Potter attempted to find and destroy them. Hermione and I were unsure if he had succeeded, or even if there had been a true threat in the first place. Now, however, we get to the ward."

He inhaled deeply.

"A ward is protective magic that can be made only by a witch or warlock such as Hermione. Do you remember when she set fire to the Ring?"

Gimli turned slightly pink, remembering his ill-thought-out attempt to destroy it himself.

"The strange symbols that she drew on the podium were a ward. She created it because Fiendfyre is dangerous when allowed loose; it prevented the fire from escaping and burning down all of Rivendell."

"But why would one of Hermione's people want to protect Sauron?" Frodo cried in distress. "Is Hermione not allied with us?"

"That is why Hermione and I are worried, young hobbit," Gandalf said, frowning. "Of what remains of her people, Hermione is person with the skill to create such a thing—unless we account for the _Death Eaters_ or Voldemort himself."

"One of Lady Hermione's most dangerous enemies faked his death and is now poised to wake up and take over her country." Aragorn restated flatly. "And now one of his followers has somehow found his way into Mordor and is helping Sauron."

"As far as we know, yes, that sounds correct," Gandalf confirmed.

None of the fellowship slept very well that night, so when the _crebain_ passed overhead during the night, they were all aware of it.

* * *

Hermione popped into her office with a wince, clutching her partially splinched forearm. The Void did hell on open wounds, even if they were bandaged over.

"Ah, Miss Granger."

Luckily she was, at this point, immune to sudden greetings and arrivals, so she merely turned to face the intruder serenely, pulling out the Elder wand. A memory charm was halfway out of her mouth when the intruder spoke again.

"Be still, Miss Granger," she examined him. He was a very short, wizened old man, perched on a stool in the corner of the room. His finger was marking a place about halfway through _The Hobbit_. "I am not a Death Eater, nor am I Voldemort."

She lowered the wand but kept it in her hand as a precaution.

"How is Bilbo these days?" The old man asked casually after a minute of awkward silence, placing the book back on her shelf.

"Old but content, the last time I checked," Hermione said, narrowing her eyes at the intruder. "You're the Head of the Department of Mysteries."

He laughed delightedly.

"I knew you were something special! Well done, to figure it out so quickly."

Hermione tried not to look too pleased or bewildered.

"That doesn't explain why you're here."

"I'm here, my dear, because you work for me and are thus under my protection when the need arises, as it has."

"Protection?" She avoided bewildered by a few steps and managed a mildly confused tone instead.

"Don't tell me you haven't heard!" He pulled a newspaper out of his robes and dropped it in front of her, on the desk. "You're being hunted down by your former department as we speak. Luckily for you, the Recruitment Division has made your trail very difficult to follow."

Hermione, however, barely comprehended his words, since she was too focused on the newspaper article.

_MEMBER OF THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX STILL ALIVE!_

On its own, this title was hardly significant. Under normal circumstances, Hermione would have been vaguely irritated at the prospect of interviews and autographs and public appearances, but what she read underneath it made her feel more afraid than she had for years.

_As our dear readers know, the Order of the Phoenix was a highly disciplined criminal organization devoted to the overthrow of the Ministry of Magic from the years 1930 to 2069._

"The Order hadn't even been created in 1930!" Hermione protested. "And it was certainly not a criminal organization!"

The Head of the D.O.M. smiled sympathetically.

"I'm afraid, Miss Granger, that history is written by the victors."

"But we were the victors," she said, more quietly. "Weren't we?"

He shrugged.

"Perhaps in that battle. But the war will not be over so long as someone has the power to continue it."

_Thanks, I love trying to interpret cryptic bullshit about human nature._

She continued reading the article.

_The _Death Eaters—

Here the word was written in Old English, which no one had spoken on Earth for a very long time. Apparently, they hadn't felt the need to change their name because no one would understand it anyway.

—_, who were responsible for the continued health of the Ministry and the wizarding world, believed they had eradicated the organization in its entirety when they eliminated the rebel leader Harry Potter._

_But why dredge up ancient history now? It seems that the _Death Eaters_ haven't disappeared as completely as was once believed._

"_We made sure to set up a watch," remarked Lord Salazar, leader of the anti-terror group (see picture below). "If the Order of the Phoenix ever appeared again, then we had to be here, to stop them, you know?"_

_Indeed, we do! Salazar's watchers were alerted to the fact that a member of the Order of the Phoenix is, impossibly, still alive._

"_Probably through a dark ritual," remarked a prominent member, Draco Malfoy. "I knew Granger in school; I always thought she was a bit mad."_

"Draco, you little b****!" Hermione said indignantly. She couldn't bear to read any more; she turned to the mysterious old wizard sitting on a stool in her office. "What does this mean?"

"Harry Potter sent you two letters before he tried to destroy Voldemort once and for all," he said. "He was taken into the caves, along with the other members of his party. Their fates are hidden to me, but you know that the magic says they are dead. Soon after, two men emerged—one was a vampire, the other a Death Eater. They found the hedgewitch that had been so helpful to Mr. Potter and forced her to send another object to Middle Earth."

Hermione stared at him, unblinking. What could Voldemort possibly want her to have?

"The object they sent was the Death Eater."

* * *

Hermione had gone into a hysterical panic attack not long after her boss had left the room. He explained that the Death Eater had contacted Voldemort. Voldemort, who knew something of _The Lord of the Rings_ (they had been relatively new and popular when he was young), instructed his follower, Dolohov, to ally himself with Sauron.

He had then begun scheming to discredit Hermione. Evidently, he had succeeded, with planted and fake history books, documents, and even confunded paintings. He had then staged his awakening, and made it all seem to rely on Hermione's continued presence in the world.

After she recovered from her hysterical panic attack, Hermione apparated directly into her little museum. It was located inside a mostly-dormant volcano, and warded to the nine hells by goblins. She glanced around at the carefully preserved and displayed items hidden in the huge, magically expanded room.

An old Firebolt caught her attention for a moment and she spared it a smile before continuing on towards the back of the room.

The Resurrection Stone. It had its own display case.

Hermione picked up the ring and put it on. The Elder wand warmed in her hand, acknowledging its companion. The ring warmed in answer. She ignored them and apparated back to her office. This time she glanced around warily for unexpected old wizards and, finding none, summoned the Invisibility Cloak. It came to her easily. She cast an enlarging charm on her pocket, then stuffed the cloak inside it.

All three objects heated up uncomfortably, before flashing white-hot and returning to normal. Hermione, once again, ignored it. You couldn't expect to become the master of Death without at least a little fanfare.

She made her way back to the Departure Room and warded the door extra-thoroughly before checking the room carefully. No one had been inside, which implied that the Head of the D.O.M. had been telling the truth. Whoever the wizard in Mordor was, they had not left the world through Ministry-approved means.

Satisfied, Hermione disappeared and reappeared in the fields outside of Rivendell. She focused on the anchor she had made for Glorfindel and closed her eyes before apparating once more. She reappeared just in time to see them emerging from strange hiding places.

"What—? Never mind," she shook her head. "I don't want to know."

"_Crebain_ from Dunland," Gandalf told her anyway. Hermione's eyes widened. Of course. They reached Hollin, and then the _crebain_ arrived. How had she forgotten the event that would force them up to Caradhras?

"What have you found?" Glorfindel asked as he stepped forward and examined Hermione. She was tense, she was wearing a new ring on her left hand, and the bandage on her left forearm was stained red.

"Voldemort woke up a week or so ago and has been preparing to take over the world," she said flatly. "The Death Eater, on the other hand, was sent not long after Harry sent his letters to me. He did not arrive, however, until a few days before Voldemort woke up."

"But why is he protecting Sauron?" Frodo asked urgently. He was most concerned about getting into Mordor and finally throwing away the Ring.

Hermione shook her head, frustrated.

"Maybe he and Voldemort have come to some kind of agreement," she turned her gaze to the Misty Mountains. "I don't know what went on between them, just that Voldemort has told Dolohov—that's the Death Eater there, by the way—that he is to assist Sauron in his plots."

The fellowship ruminated on this and asked her a few more questions before they once again settled down, hoping for some sleep during the last few hours of the night.

Hermione found herself unable to sleep, and wandered over to Glorfindel, who was on watch. She sat beside him without speaking. His presence calmed her slightly, and she eventually gained some rest by using his shoulder as a pillow.

Glorfindel, for his part, kept the watch as best he could without disturbing her.

* * *

**[1]** If a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon, then a hurricane hits the coast of China. It's also called the ripple effect, and doesn't just apply to the weather. Hermione's presence for so long might have changed something minute that grew into something seriously different from the story. So far we haven't seen anything different because she was careful, but now everything's happening at once, on Earth and in Arda, and she can't afford to pay so much attention to the storyline.

**[2]** I can't imagine Hermione going through over 2,000 years of life without continually learning something new. I never said she played the violin well, nor did I say that she picked it up in a day—rather, I think that it was just a skill that she learned through off-and-on practice over the space of several hundred years. You may see a few more of these little tricks or skills, but nothing major, so please don't go canon on my arse.

**[3] **Word-for-word quote from the book. Oh, Boromir and his pride…

**Heehee-the plot thickens!**

**I've just begun outlining a series of loosely related humorous one-shots, set during Chapter 2 (Interlude). The first one, "Elves aren't actually six inches tall with beards and red noses," will be coming soon to your local fanfiction[.]net!**

**Goodness, that one line from Glorfindel ("the hand upon which their name was writ") just made me sound so pretentious. Come to think of it, the sentence structure for this entire chapter has been a bit stiff. Sorry about that.**

**Two long chapters in a week! Oh, how I spoil you…**


	7. Untangling History

**Disclaimer: The only thing here that I own is this convoluted plot. No, I don't own that little hobbit there, it's just been following me around.**

**Posted: 2/2/2012**

**Words: 7,193**

**Monty Python and the Holy Grail references: Just the one. I'm curious as to how many people actually read these little things: If you did, prove it to me by communicating your favorite Monty Python sketch. (Perhaps this could be a new poll in the making…?)**

* * *

**Speaking of polls, here are the results of the one that was on my profile for so long**

**Q: Who should Hermione end up with in **_**Diplomacy**_**?**

**A: Glorfindel (11~36%), Legolas (8~26%), Haldir (5~16%), Elrohir/Elladen (3~10%), Faramir (2~6%), Boromir (1~3%) and Eomer (0). Poor Eomer. Anyway, I'm glad you all agree that Glorfindel is superior to Nancy-boy, although I did promise to conjure some fluff for the other top two. It'll certainly be a challenge for me to write something with Haldir and Legolas. I was prepared to do things with the twins, but **_**nooo**_**, had to go and choose the foreign Elves, didn't you? **

* * *

**7: Untangling History**

* * *

Hermione woke up the next morning with a stiff neck and sore back (probably from her flight off of the Black Gates), wondering how she had somehow ended up lying horizontal, wrapped in her cloak. A quick glance towards Glorfindel, and the concerned expression he was watching her with, however, explained it all.

She made her way over to the fire and sat next to Gandalf, who was puffing on his pipe.

"You're going to run out of pipe-weed very quickly if you keep that up," she informed him, wrinkling her nose at the smell. He gave her a sidelong look and blew a smoke ring in her general direction.

The light mood dissipated quickly, however, as they turned their heads to the Southeast.

"Why does everything always happen at once?" Hermione asked in a distinctly irritated tone. Gandalf chuckled mirthlessly.

"To have lived so long and only now be out of time," he mused sagely. "Yes, I understand very well."

Hermione smirked a bit, recalling a somewhat dramatic repetition of 'three hundred lives of men I have lived, and now I have no time!'

"I believe that, for now, this Dolohov is the most pressing issue," Gandalf added. Hermione hummed agreement.

"Yes, the Head of the Department of Mysteries is attempting to repair my reputation as we speak," she said. "Although I should speak with him before I take any drastic action."

"Such as?"

"Such as tearing down the ward around Mordor with my bare hands," she said, her face contorting in pain as she tried to rest her chin on her injured arm and ripped the scab open.

"Do you know if the ward extends all the way around Mordor?" Gandalf asked carefully. Hermione raised a brow and shook her head. "Then perhaps it might be best to leave it. The hobbits have a different physical makeup than the other inhabitants of Arda anyway—the ward may not affect them at all."

"And if I take it down, then Dolohov, and by extension Sauron, will know for sure that we're trying to destroy the Ring, which would change events drastically and leave me with little to no useful foreknowledge," Hermione realized with a sigh. Gandalf had the irritating habit of being almost always right.

"But I encourage you to speak to the Unspeakables," he offered. "The Department Chair may be able to offer you some wisdom. He is, after all, almost as old as I am."

Hermione looked at him in surprise.

"You spent almost three thousand years steadfastly ignoring every question I asked about that dratted old midget, and now you tell me something like that without prompting?" He looked back at her innocently.

"Eh," she said, giving up their short staring contest. "I suppose I had best be off then." She shot him a half-amused, half-mischievous look before saying in Old English, "I wouldn't want to be stuck halfway up Caradhras when Saruman decides to bring down an avalanche."

Gandalf was still staring at her incredulously when she twirled on the spot and departed Middle Earth.

* * *

Hermione reappeared in her office.

"Ah, Miss Granger," she stiffened and inhaled sharply in surprise, then breathed out through her nose and closed her eyes, counting to ten and praying for patience. "I had hoped you would return soon."

She glared at the Department Chair, once again seated on the stool in the corner. This time, a heavy history book was sitting open on his lap.

"Sir," Hermione replied in a distinctly disrespectful tone. He chuckled. She relaxed a bit despite herself. "I don't recognize that book."

"You wouldn't," he said, amused, as he lifted it and to show her the cover. It read: _A Modern History of Salazar's School for the Talented_. "Because it is complete and utter tripe that "Lord Salazar" planted in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library."

After she recovered from her amusement at hearing such an old man call something "tripe," Hermione spoke up.

"No progress on correcting the false information yet, then, sir?"

"Unfortunately, no," he said, frowning, "Though I have spoken to the Minister and he has agreed to help spread the truth." He quickly brightened, however, as he held the book out to her. "This, however, has provided a very amusing distraction."

Hermione glanced down at the chapter title.

_Mad Gryffindor's Attempts to Open the School to Muggles_.

"Dare I ask what this covers?" She inquired dryly, handing the book back.

"The many times Lord Godric attempted to blow up the dungeons, thus proving that he was insane, before moving on to a description of his bravery. Specifically, the alleged time when he wanted the witch-hunters to come to "Salazar's School for the Talented" so they could be educated not to be murdering superstitious bastards. Suffice to say, his plan didn't end very well." He paused and glanced down at the book contemplatively. "But he doesn't say a word about the pureblooded vs. muggleborn feud. I suppose he figured out that every witch or wizard naturally born in these times has traceable muggle blood within four generations."

They paused for a moment, wondering how Voldemort could have split his soul into so many different pieces and still be sane enough to come up with something like the book. Eventually, Hermione shook her head and told the older man about the ward on the Black Gates.

He did not appear overly surprised.

"I had not expected Dolohov to be sent back without orders," he told her. "Although I am concerned that he has taken no aggressive action."

* * *

In Isengard, Antonin Dolohov stirred from his lazy position, slung across a conjured armchair. Saruman was staring into his _palantír_ and he was getting bored. Once the white wizard turned from the unnerving glass ball, he spoke.

"What's going on, then?"

Saruman gave him a distrustful look.

"Sauron wishes me to halt the Ringbearer's progress over Caradhras," he said sourly. Dolohov brightened immediately and ran out of the room, towards his bags. Finally, something he could do. He removed a broomstick and immediately swept out of the window, armed with a wand and a map of Middle Earth.

* * *

"For some reason, I got a really bad feeling when you said that," Hermione muttered, staring at the older man. He blinked and grew somewhat concerned.

"You know, I did too."

They sat in silence before Hermione shook herself out of her stupor.

"I'd like to get out a bit first. I have some resources that may be of help to you, in any event."

"Oh?" He raised an eyebrow. "Your little museum? Will you show me?"

"Will you tell me who you are?"

He appeared disappointed.

"You haven't figured it out yet?" He shook his head and his eyes began to twinkle in the way of obnoxious blue-eyed old men. "I have no doubt that you will soon enough, without any hints from me."

Hermione scowled.

"I'm going to go pick them up myself. I'll bring them back here as soon as I can."

The Department Chair chuckled and sat back, returning his attention to the false history. Hermione disappeared after giving him one more highly affronted look.

Immediately after reappearing inside her volcano, however, Hermione cast a heavy glamour over herself and apparated away once more, back to the abandoned Ministry building (it was now used only for the Department of Mysteries, so the Atrium was entirely empty).

She glanced around, thinking somewhat sourly that it was a wonder she had even tried to hide her destination from her apparently omniscient boss, before making her way to the surface via telephone box. It had been modernized somewhat, but still appeared very run-down. She paid little attention to the traffic surrounding her and instead made her way to the nearest floating garage.

It was a simple thing to break into a combination magic and advanced technology car (magic to make it disobey gravity, and technology to make it otherwise function), and she flew off without looking back. The built-in GPS system took her all the way to the former Himalayas, and she flew around for a while before her eyes fell upon the one mountain of the whole range that was still standing.

Well, her eyes fell upon an area that was blindingly purple and she barely managed to land the car nearby without crashing.

"What the hell…?"

It appeared to be a tourist attraction. There were several official-looking people standing around outside the entrance in uniforms bearing the emblem of the International Confederation of Wizards. Hermione felt a headache forming.

She let the car stay where it was, resisting the temptation to put a notice-me-not charm on it. If she started casting more heavy magic, the ICW guards might notice the glamour she wore.

More importantly, the Death Eaters might notice the glamour she wore.

"Here to see the _Death Eaters'_ headquarters, dearie?" Hermione nodded distractedly. The older woman who had spoken to her smiled and handed her a pamphlet.

"'The Never-Ending Fight Against Evil'?" She read under her breath, incredulous. "Bloody hell. They have no shame."

The throngs of tourists were slowly pushing her towards the opening of the caves. Hermione allowed herself to be led along and was somehow roped into a tour.

She looked around with little interest. It was obvious that this was all a set-up; it looked nothing like the frightening cave Harry had mentioned in his letter.

Eventually, they came to a fork in the path. Hermione eyed the left path with vague interest, because of the translucent purple ward that covered it, but did not focus on it overmuch. Anything guarded by something that weak was surely not worth exploring.

"Now this painting dates back to the twenty-second century…" Hermione looked between the guard's arm and the open tunnel he was gesturing to in confusion.

As the tour group continued on, Hermione lingered to study the "painting" very carefully. Suddenly, on impulse, she stuck her hand through the faint barrier.

"A glamour!" She laughed quietly and stepped the rest of the way through the "wall". The Death Eaters had no way of knowing that her eyesight would automatically focus on the magic behind the glamour, not what the glamour wanted her to see. "How clever."

She pulled the Invisibility Cloak out of her expanded pocket and drew it around her shoulders before setting off down the hall, carefully keeping track of the way back. She couldn't afford to be found in the midst of the Death Eaters when the Unspeakables' Department Chair was already having trouble clearing her name.

It didn't take long for the light to fade away, and soon she was walking in almost complete darkness, her path lit only by a very pale purple glow from the magic holding the tunnels up.

Eventually, she came across someone she recognized: Draco Malfoy. He looked just as old as he had been when he died—that is to say, when he was found lying lifeless on the floor of his manor at 67 years of age. Anyone with knowledge of the Draught of Living Death would be able to figure out what had happened. He was levitating a tray covered in—she leaned closer, then recoiled—bags of blood.

Hermione correctly deduced that he was going to feed Voldemort's vampiric allies, and enchanted herself accordingly—a one-way silencing charm and a minor ward that would keep the smell of her blood safely under the Invisibility Cloak. Against her better judgment—which was screaming _get the bloody hell out of there_—she followed him down several twisting corridors.

They eventually came to a heavy door, which she would not have been surprised to see in guarding Azkaban, except for the fact that it had no locks.

No _outside_ locks.

Malfoy set the tray on the ground and tapped the door with his wand. The echo of a bell could be heard on their side of the barrier. Draco once again levitated the tray as the sound of locks coming undone reverberated through the narrow hall.

_So the vampires don't trust him,_ Hermione mused. _I wouldn't either._

Then the door opened and she stiffened involuntarily—not just because the vampire had blood-red eyes and an aura that completely agitated her flight-or-flight instinct, but because Hermione knew her.

It was Ginny Weasley.

* * *

Glorfindel sighed as he once again lifted a hobbit out of a snow drift. Gandalf had been sullen ever since Hermione's departure the day before, and his mood had transferred itself to the rest of the fellowship; Merry and Pippen alone remained relatively unaffected.

Which led to their overenthusiastic efforts at walking up the mountainside ahead of the Big Folk, which almost inevitably led to Glorfindel coming to the rescue.

He sighed again.

After setting the hobbit on its feet with an admonition to stay behind Boromir, Glorfindel turned and caught up with Legolas.

The prince was staring off into the distance.

"Lord Glorfindel," he greeted Eldar. "I see something curious upon the winds."

Glorfindel raised an eyebrow, but turned his vision in the same direction as the other Elf's.

"I can make out only a dark shape on the horizon," he said, shaking his head. "What do you see?"

Legolas frowned.

"I would say my eyes are deceiving me, but…" He squinted slightly and continued skeptically. "I see a figure on a broom."

"A figure on a broom," Glorfindel repeated flatly. "Flying."

Legolas gave an uneasy laugh.

"I must be mistaken," he said, shaking his head and turning away. Boromir had almost caught up to them. Glorfindel, however, remained rooted in place, staring at the speck in the distance.

"Gandalf," he said unsteadily, as the rest of the group reached the Elves. The old wizard grunted, obviously still moody. "I think I found Dolohov."

* * *

Hermione gaped at Ginny, who accepted the blood from Draco with nary a word. She was so surprised, in fact, that she barely managed to get inside the door before it slammed shut in Malfoy's face.

Ginny glared down at the tray and muttered, "Probably diluted it, the bastard," before setting off down the hall. Hermione followed, still in shock. Doors lined the halls—the vampiress stopped at each one and dropped off a bag of blood, but Hermione was thankful to note that none of the other faces were familiar.

Finally, there was but one bag left.

_That must be for her, _Hermione decided, still following Ginny. The redhead glanced around briefly to find the corridor empty, then headed off furtively, deeper underground. Hermione, curiosity piqued, followed her.

They soon reached a gate set into the tunnel walls, which Ginny opened with a touch of her wand and a whispered word. The vampiress then led the way past a set of—well, they had to be jail cells.

Each one they passed, Hermione was pleased to note, was empty, until they came to the last three. Two were, like the previous cells, separated from the corridor only by close-set iron bars and contained only shriveled skeletons. The last, however, was heavy oak that that shined a bright gold.

_Gold?_ Hermione stared at the door, baffled. _Since when are wards gold?_

Ginny crept closer to the door and stood on tiptoe to see through a small opening, covered by bars to match the other cells. Hermione was somehow reassured by this still-human act, though she still felt the uneasiness of one in the presence of a predator.

"Harry?" Ginny asked quietly. There came a whimper from inside the cell. Hermione recoiled once more, her eyes widening as she prayed to God and several Valar that Ginny hadn't meant who she thought she'd meant. Ginny ripped off a corner of the bag she carried, and swiftly downed about half of its contents. Then, clutching her wand in one hand the open bag in another, she cracked open the door.

There, straining against heavy iron shackles, was Harry Potter.

Hermione stared at her old friend in shock and horror. His eyes were blood-red, but his skin was pale and translucent—more so even than the other vampires'. His eyes rolled back in his head and he growled as Ginny stepped slowly into the cell.

Hermione took a step backwards, more frightened than she had been since—well, ever. Not even Professor Lupin's surprise attack in the Forbidden Forest in her third year had scared her this much.

Ginny, however, seemed unafraid, if wary. She was soon standing only about a foot away from Harry, and lifted the bag. He surged forward as far as he could, and began to drink as a man dying of thirst.

Hermione looked away.

It took far too long for the bag to empty, then Ginny said some soft words to Harry and stepped away. He made a keening sound, and his eyes seemed, somehow, more sane then they had before. Ginny made more soothing noises but nonetheless stepped out of the room and locked the door behind her.

Hermione tried to calm her breathing and took several more steps backwards. This, however, turned out to be the wrong move, because Ginny's head immediately snapped up and she suddenly moved forward.

Hermione hardly had time to get her wand out and shield up, but at that point, it was too late: The Invisibility Cloak had already been ripped away, and Ginny was staring at her in shock and, more importantly, remembrance.

"Hermione!" The witch winced.

"Ginny," she answered shakily. "Fancy seeing you here."

* * *

"You think _what?_" Gandalf asked incredulously, staring at Glorfindel. The Elf-lord refused to be cowed.

"A figure, upon a broom, flying this way," he said, stepping closer to the wizard. "Who else could it possibly be?"

"Flying on a broom?" Boromir entered the conversation with a voice tinged in disbelief.

"Hermione told me once of a game her people played," Glorfindel defended himself. "Called _Quidditch_. The players flew upon enchanted brooms. She gave one such to Erestor at the Yule feast."

Boromir's eyes widened as he remembered, though his forgetfulness must be excused because Erestor hadn't actually tried to use the strange object before their departure.

"The more important question," Gandalf cut in, "Is what does he want?"

The fellowship stared off the mountain, each searching for the mysterious figure. It came into normal view much sooner than it should have.

"He's moving fast," remarked Aragorn, concerned.

"Why are we wasting time, then?" Sam asked. "Let's get under cover!"

The idea proved more difficult said than done. Though a snowstorm blew up and helped them in their efforts to hide, Legolas and Glorfindel (who took it in turns to watch for Dolohov and to search for shelter) reported that the Death Eater seemed to be tracking them.

As they hurried across Caradhras, the Lord of Gondolin often reached within his tunic to finger the wand Hermione had left with him, but each time he resisted the urge to call for her. She was no doubt busy in her homeland, and the fellowship was not yet under attack in any event.

They finally reached a rocky overhang, and took cover, sheltering under their cloaks. Glorfindel drafted Aragorn and Boromir into building up a wall of snow to protect them from Dolohov's view while Gandalf watched over the hobbits and Legolas kept watch for Dolohov.

"Where is he?" Glorfindel asked in a normal tone of voice, knowing that the other Elf would hear him despite the wind roaring around them.

"About twenty feet away," came Legolas' short answer. "He cannot see us."

"Then let us take cover with the hobbits," Glorfindel said. Legolas turned and walked towards them. Boromir and Aragorn, heeding the Elf-lord's gestures, ducked under the overhand and behind their slight barrier.

The fell voice on the wind had been bothering many of the fellowship for hours. So it was that Glorfindel hardly noticed the newest addition to the wind's howl.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_ The words were familiar. The Elf-lord gestured for Legolas to hurry, but the wind was strong and the slight prince could only move so quickly. Suddenly, he remembered a conversation with Hermione, which had given him chills even in the warmth and safety of Rivendell.

"_Damn." He watched her in concern as she turned away. "The incantation is 'Avada Kedavra,' and it produces a bolt of green light that separates a person's soul from their body, thus producing instant death."_

_Her voice was pained, and he realized with shock that she must have had personal experience with this particular curse._

True to Hermione's word, a bolt of green light shot towards the two elves. It missed by about two feet and instead struck the snow farther back along the path.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_ Glorfindel heard the incantation once more and leapt forward to knock Legolas to the ground. His actions proved to be just in time, as the green light passed over their heads and hit the snow nearby. The Elf-prince whose life Glorfindel had just saved sat up and drew an arrow. Glorfindel thought incredulously that it would take some skill to hit anything in this storm.

Despite that, Legolas' projectile came perilously close to the airborne Death Eater, who was having enough trouble just staying on his broom. He turned and flew away a short distance, intending to return. The two Elf-lords used the intervening time to sneak underneath the overhang and hide.

Dolohov flew around for a few more minutes, but it was cold and windy and he could find no trace of the Ringbearer. He eventually gave up and turned his broom back to Isengard, confident that the company would give up on the Redhorn Gate.

* * *

"How are you still alive?" Hermione winced again at Ginny's voice.

"That's a rather, er, long story," she said, lowering her wand hesitantly and reaching out to take the Invisibility Cloak from Ginny's now limp hand. She stuffed it back into her robe pocket. "How much do you remember?"

"I remember you ending your engagement to—" She cut herself off and her eyes flashed in pain. "Well, I remember you ending your engagement and being named Head of the D.M.L.E. Then I remember an Unspeakable tried to give me Crookshanks."

Hermione could barely restrain a snicker.

"Yes, I asked them to," she said, smirking slightly. Ginny shot her a somewhat dirty look, her red eyes flashing in vaguely amused irritation.

"Then—nothing," Ginny finished. "You just disappeared. No one remembered you, and you'd disappeared from every newspaper clipping—and I mean every single one, even those that Susan Bones kept stashed under her bed (I know because she showed them to me once). It seemed like no one knew about you."

Hermione nodded and gestured for Ginny to continue. The vampiress frowned in thought.

"Harry had another vision," she said quietly. "He called Ron and I-I'd married Dean Thomas, I thought that was what I wanted—and the rest of the D.A. and, oh, well, various people that had helped us in the fight against Voldemort over the years. He told us that he'd seen this place, and that Voldemort was actually still alive and had put himself asleep or something."

Hermione nodded again. This corroborated her Department Chair's story.

"A lot of people didn't believe him. Harry had us obliviate them before they left. Then we came here."

The redhead began walking back down the hall and gesture for Hermione to follow, which she did, warily and with many glances around corners and down hallways.

"Voldemort had indeed put himself to sleep, but he'd left several of his Death Eaters and all of the vampires awake to guard his hiding place. We fought to kill them all, but in the end, only Harry, Ron and I were still alive."

The strange pained looked crossed her face again as she said her brother's name. Hermione resisted the urge to interrupt her and ask what had happened to her one-time paramour.

"Luna and Neville almost survived as well," she said, her voice dropping even further. "But one of the vampires had bitten them each during the attack and they were out of their minds with thirst within five minutes."

Hermione just raised a questioning eyebrow, and Ginny explained, glancing furtively down the hall to make sure it was empty.

"To create another vampire, one of us has to bite them to begin the process and then feed them our blood to cement the change. Neville and Luna were not given any blood in exchange for what was taken. Luckily, even half of a change will release any magic a person once had, so it was safe to lock them in cells near Harry."

She opened a door and led Hermione into a suite of rooms, decorated in the cheerful yellows, reds, and browns that Hermione still, after all these years, associated with the Burrow.

"We were lucky that Voldemort wasn't awake. The Death Eaters didn't dare wake Voldemort up before he was ready, even if he had the best Legilimency skills of them all. Apparently the last time they tried they prompted Harry's vision and made Tom a bit irritated," she added with a faint smile.

"In any event," she continued, shaking her head, "They tried to break into Harry's mind first, and he easily gave up the information concerning the vision. I think he was trying to make them think he had nothing more important to hide, but they found a section of his mind that was more heavily guarded. They managed to learn that he knew what had happened to you and that your memory had been obliviated from everyone else."

Ginny looked at Hermione, who knew she was going to have some explaining to do once this was over.

"They then turned to me. Their talk of you had the calculated effect of waking my memories, but I'm sneakier than Harry. Instead of simply hiding them away, I hid the thoughts of you within my more boring memories—making Dean his 50th birthday dinner and things like that. They gave up quickly."

She now closed her eyes briefly, as though thinking back on painful memories.

"They wanted to keep us alive, though. For Voldemort to personally examine. So they handed us off to the vampires. They instructed them to turn us, because they hoped that that would eliminate our Occlumency shields. They were mistaken—Occlumency is a science of the mind, a personal thing born of meditation that even muggles can accomplish. They gave up on me, thinking that I had nothing of value anyway, and focused on Harry. They instructed us to give him no blood until he cracked and told them about your disappearance—they were curious for that very reason and because he had hidden what he knew."

She sighed deeply and opened her eyes.

"Harry didn't break. He just slowly went mad. Now even Voldemort acknowledges that he can glean nothing useful from Harry's mind, though he still tries every once in a while."

"And what of you?" Hermione asked. "Surely he attempted to read your thoughts as well."

"Operative word: tried," Ginny said with a definite smirk. "I've had several years to work on my Occlumency, during my shifts guarding the mountain."

She fell silent, and Hermione was reminded forcefully that her friend was much older than she remembered. Vampirism had smoothed her face and cleared her skin, but she still had that old-but-ageless look Hermione associated with the Elves and—well, and her own face in the mirror.

"But what have you been doing this whole time?" Hermione was jolted back to the present. She shook an admonishing finger at Ginny.

"You're not getting off the hook that easily," she said. "What happened to Ron?"

Ginny turned away, her face closing.

"Please," she said softly. "I will tell as soon as I may, but—Events are new to me, as well; I only woke up a short time ago, and I was occupied with feeding for most of it. Just—wait."

Hermione nodded slowly, then said, "I want to believe you, Gin, it's just—" She broke off and sighed. "After I tell you my tale, I will offer you access to my mind to see the veracity of my statements. I ask that you do the same."

"Of course," Ginny agreed, seeming relieved that Hermione was inclined to trust her. She settled in and listened as Hermione began her story, beginning with that fateful afternoon at the Ministry of Magic.

"…but, as I found out recently, there's a bleeding ward guarding the entrance into Mordor and I can't get through. So I came here to investigate and got ambushed by the damn coot who runs my department."

Hermione ended with a frown. "I decided to do some investigation of my own, so I came out here and—lo and behold—found what I least expected to see."

Ginny was staring at her, her face blank. Hermione sighed and reached out a gentle strand of her mind to touch Ginny's conscious. The redhead responded and followed the thought-tendril back to Hermione's thoughts. The vampiress shuffled through them gently, and eventually retreated to her own thoughts, pulling Hermione's thought-tendril with her.

Hermione shuffled through the memories just as carefully as Ginny had with hers. She could see the guarded place that practically screamed _Ronald Weasley!_, and resisted the urge to look there.

The things she did for her friends.

She came to realize that Ginny's tale had been true, and retreated into herself. They stared at one another for a moment before Hermione spoke once more.

"One thing I don't understand," she said, and Ginny choked back a quick retort. _Only one thing?_ "Why was Dolohov sent to my world?"

Though Hermione didn't catch onto the possessive in her question, Ginny did, and wondered if it had anything to do with the twin blond**[1]** Elves that showed up so often in her thoughts.

"That was the Death Eaters' initiative," she responded, clearing her head of useless conjecture. "Dolohov dragged Marco Salieri out to the old woman's shack—the place Harry used to send you the letters—but only Marco came back. We all expected the Death Eaters to be pissed as hell, but they immediately set Marco back into the sleep and didn't let him wake for the watch until Dolohov contacted them via two-way mirror a little over two weeks ago."

Hermione blinked. Then blinked again. Then resisted the urge to shout "Eureka!" at the top of her lungs.

"So it was _Dolohov_ who prompted Voldemort's awakening!" She said triumphantly. "Because he figured out what had happened to _me_ and that we could reach another world and the other Death Eaters knew that Voldemort would want to hear about it!"

Ginny nodded in amusement. It was comforting to note that some things never changed.

"Yes, but he doesn't know exactly what you're doing there," she said, sobering quickly. "He knows a little—apparently he read the books when he was very young, which caught me by surprise—and he figured that Dolohov's best bet to figure out what you were doing was to capture and interrogate you. Dolohov then traded favors with Sauron and Saruman: if you were captured by either of their forces, then you would be handed over to him, and he would do whatever possible to further their goals of world domination, etcetera, etcetera."

Hermione felt vaguely flattered, but also deeply disturbed. She refocused on her old friend. One of her first and best female friends, actually.

"Where do the vampires fit into all of this?" This time Ginny really did snicker.

"We all hate Voldemort," she said conversationally. "I've told them enough stories of his lying and betraying over the years to ensure that. At the time, though, they thought it best to ally with him rather than risk exposure and extermination."

Hermione nodded sympathetically, but Ginny wasn't finished with her story yet.

"Marco was the first one they let outside; as a reward for helping Dolohov get to Middle Earth, I suppose. In any event, he went outside and was immediately contacted by the head of your department. Apparently, he already knew about our disappearance up here, along with Dolohov's subsequent disappearance. But he hadn't had cause to investigate so long as we were still hidden, and apparently even he couldn't get into the mountain. Still can't, actually.

"Anyway, he asked what was happening. Marco told him the bare minimum, then came back and discussed it with the rest of us." Seeing Hermione's questioning expression, she added, "There are only twenty-four of us, not counting me or Harry.

"We decided to keep all our options open, in the hopes that he could somehow secure us a place in the world if we helped him. So we've been telling him everything we can."

Hermione glared at a wall and muttered under her breath, "That sneaky little bugger." Ginny chuckled.

"If it helps, we don't know much."

"You know a hell of a lot more than I did!" Hermione said, then reflected that she had been cursing a lot more since Voldemort's appearance. Obviously he wasn't good for her mental health.

"So that's why he didn't tell me about it when it happened," she continued, more quietly. Ginny nodded.

"He didn't know what was happening. Much as it may seem, he isn't really all-knowing. I mean, he was tracking our group because it was really quite obvious to anyone paying attention that we were _not_ just having a D.A. reunion, but he wouldn't have known if Dolohov had just apparated to Canada to fetch maple syrup or somewhere else with more nefarious plans. He can watch, but not _that_ closely."

Hermione nodded absently.

"Understandable," she said, then rose. "Speaking of my boss, he's going to need some things I keep hidden away."

Ginny rose with her.

"I'll show you the way out," she said. "But you had best put the cloak back on."

Hermione obliged her, then followed as the redhead exited her rooms. To her surprise, they went in the opposite direction of the door, but instead, deeper down. Finally, they had gone all the way to the other side of the mountain, and reached its base.

"Thank you, Ginny," Hermione said softly, still hidden from view. Ginny smiled softly, her teeth glistening from the faint glow of Hermione's lumos charm, and said nothing.

Hermione stepped out of the mountain. There were no wards protecting this entrance; it was a secret one that the vampires had created as a failsafe, protection in case Voldemort betrayed them.

She turned and glanced back towards the tunnel. Ginny had already closed the door. She turned away again and apparated back into her little museum.

* * *

The fellowship had recovered from Dolohov and Saruman's attacks, but turned back nonetheless. Gandalf grumbled the whole time about how obnoxiously superior Hermione was going to be when she heard what had happened.

The wargs came upon them in the night, and, as a group, they decided to turn to Moria. Glorfindel remembered Hermione's words the night before their departure: _"It's after we get to Moria that I'm worried about."_ He could not shake off his anxiety and urged the group to find another way.

But the Ringbearer chose Moria and it wasn't like they could travel all the way to the Gap of Rohan with wargs following them, anyway.

So it was that the fellowship turned towards the mines.

* * *

Hermione returned to her office almost a full day after she had left it, not really expecting the Head of the D.O.M. to still be there.

And yet, there he was, in all his glory, sitting on his stool and reading _The Silmarillion_.

"Did you know," he said as greeting, "That there was a great debate about whether the Glorfindel who slew the Balrog is actually the same Glorfindel who saved Frodo? Most experts only believed it was so only because Tolkien did not give any two Elves the same name."

Hermione shuddered. She'd been yet to reach her first four-digit age when Glorfindel had been killed. It'd been awful; she'd gone through the same debate her boss was now citing several times before he reappeared in Rivendell.

She'd given him a hug (the first and only), then slapped him across the face and told him to never do anything like that again, then made sure he had nothing to eat but protein bars for the next month in revenge for making her worry. She'd also framed Elrohir for the prank, which prompted Glorfindel to replace his wardrobe, which prompted the Curious Incident of the Pink Hair.

"I can resolve that for you," she said, her tone deceptively light. "They're the same person."

"Interesting," the old man said, setting the book back on her shelf and eyeing the ancient beaded bag in her hands.

"These are all of the sources I thought would be useful," Hermione explained, shaking away thoughts of Middle Earth. "We'd best go through them."

The wizard sighed and agreed. They spent the next several days sprawled around a conference room across the hall from Hermione's office (and warded just as heavily).

"You had best go check on Middle Earth," Hermione's boss told her eventually. She was looking sleep-deprived and stressed. "It is important to make sure Dolohov took no action while you were away."

Hermione made a sleepy noise of protest.

"No," he was adamant. "I must meet with the Minister anyway, to discuss what we have learned. Stay in Middle Earth for a while, then return and I will tell you of my progress."

She grumbled but agreed, leaving the room in the manner of someone slightly drunk and making her way to the Departure Room.

_I must have really been blinded by the wards on Death Eater Mountain,_ she thought, bemused, as she stared at the faintly purple door and swayed back and forth slightly. Dismissing the thought, she entered the room. It took her almost ten minutes just to catch a bird and put it in the box.

She managed eventually, and travelled through the Void to land just outside of Rivendell, as always. Just because she _could_ appear anywhere in Middle Earth didn't mean she used the power all that often. She couldn't focus on the anchor she had given Glorfindel from Earth, in any event.

At that moment, however, she could feel Bellatrix's wand like a beacon and, after settling herself slightly, she twisted into the familiar tube of apparation.

There was darkness all around when she reappeared. After about six too many surprises in the past week, not to mention barely six hours of sleep in the past two days, this was just too much for poor Hermione. She let loose a whimper into the gloom.

Almost immediately, she saw a light and followed its halo to see a staff and Gandalf's familiar, kindly face. She relaxed slightly, only to jump again as Pippin caught sight of her and shrieked in surprise. Merry hushed him, but Hermione could feel herself trembling slightly.

Glorfindel couldn't hold himself still any longer and stepped forward, trying to be slow to avoid frightening her once more. He glanced at Gandalf and indicated that the wizard should lead the way through the mines.

Hermione seemed unable to move as Glorfindel came close to her. The others passed by them. Finally, the Elf hesitantly lifted a hand and, placing it on the small of her back, guided her after the rest of the group.

Hermione stayed close to him as they continued, trying to calm her nerves and formulate what she was going to tell the fellowship. If Glorfindel felt the need to unnecessarily offer her a hand over small holes and steps, or occasionally rest his hand on her back, Hermione didn't notice.

After a few days, they came to a place that was unfamiliar to Gandalf. He made to sit in front of the archways, but Hermione came forward and began to speak to him quietly. As she told him all that she had learned, the others came forward until the entire fellowship was sitting in a circle around the fire, listening to her story.

When she had finally finished, there was silence for a long time before Frodo spoke up.

"How could all of this happen without our knowing?" He asked, an adorably questioning expression on his face. "Even if it occurred far to the east, surely some word would have spread to Lord Elrond, or Gondor or Rohan."

Hermione sighed and confirmed what Gandalf already knew and Glorfindel had long suspected.

"I'm not actually from the Far East," she said, and hesitated. "I'm from a different world."

She let the appropriate expressions of shock and disbelief pass without speaking, her exhaustion clear on her face.

"I know it is hard to believe," she said finally, and glanced at Gandalf, a glint of humor shining in her brown eyes. "But Gandalf was the one who first traveled to my world and asked for my help, many hundreds of years ago."

Gandalf gave her a dirty look as all questions and confused statements turned to him. Hermione snickered and stood up stiffly. She bent down to mutter in his ear, "I will leave in the morning to speak with the Department Chair about his progress."

Gandalf nodded and she stepped away from the fire, rubbing her legs. They seemed to have fallen asleep while she sat there. Careful to keep her back to the fire, Hermione stared out at the shadows contemplatively.

_Gollum is out there somewhere_, she realized. _If I could catch him, I can probably find out exactly what Dolohov has done in Mordor since his arrival here._

But she decided quickly that she knew enough of the Death Eater's actions already—and besides, she was not even the slightest bit tempted to venture out into that unknown darkness.

Unnoticed by the rest of the group, Glorfindel watched Hermione walk away. She had wrapped her arms around her waist protectively and was staring out into Moria. He glanced around the fire to see that the fellowship was still bombarding Gandalf with questions, then stood and walked over to her.

Hermione heard the crunching noise of boot-on-loose-rock, and turned her head sideways to see a golden-haired Elf approaching her. She smiled at him briefly, grateful that he had allowed her to hear his approach, then turned back to face Moria.

He touched her elbow lightly as he stood beside her.

"You need to sleep," he said softly, focusing on the dark circles under her unusually dull eyes and the lackluster quality of her normally bronze-tinged hair. She glanced up at him, then turned completely and stepped back towards the fire. The Elf followed her, his expression concerned.

Hermione unconsciously lay out her bedroll closer to Glorfindel that night, attracted by the gentle golden glow he emitted.

As she fell asleep, she felt vaguely that that thought should be important.

_Golden hair…golden tree of life…a golden ward…_ Her thoughts were running in circles, spiraling downwards until she finally reached an uneasy state of unconsciousness.

* * *

**[1]** Elrond is descended from blond Elves. His sons should also be blond. If you prefer the dark-haired movie versions, you are welcome to picture them as such.

* * *

**Ha! I bet you thought I just let Glorfindel tag along for fun. Nope, he had a purpose! We couldn't let Legolas die, could we?**

**On a related note, Dolohov's a nasty little bugger, ain't he?**

**Speaking of little buggers, I bet you don't know who Hermione's boss is! If you guess correctly, I will… I dunno, owe you an unspecified favor? Seriously, though, it'll probably take you all by surprise. Speaking of which, bet you weren't expecting Harry, were you? Sorry bout that, but… well, we'll see if he recovers.**

**This chapter was hellishly long. I'm not sure if I should apologize or feel smug that I wrote it so quickly.**

**Eh. I've always wondered why authors sometimes apologize for long chapters. It's never bothered me as a reader. Can anyone perchance explain to me why they do that?**

**Oh, and nobody mentioned it but mad props to me for using the word "plebian" in a normal dialogue last chapter. Hehe.**


	8. The Balrog

**Disclaimer: Good news for you: I've decided not to feed you to a vampire. They're scary. (And not glittery.) Instead, I'm going to feed you to a Balrog (even though I don't actually own one)!**

**Posted: 2/5/2012**

**Words: 4,908**

* * *

**To anonymous reviewer "Ri-chan"****: ***…* Did you hear that? That was the sound of my jaw dropping open. How did you figure it out? (To the rest of you: Don't you dare read that review. It'll spoil the surprise!)

* * *

**8: The Balrog**

* * *

Hermione woke up to the feeling that something was about to go very, very wrong.

Of course, that was by now quite normal, so she disregarded it easily and sat up, stretching, then made her way over to Gandalf.

He was sitting where they had left him the night before, staring at the three passageways.

"I need to get to the Ministry and make a quick check on the Department Chair," she said, not bothering to greet him. He grunted in response and continued staring.

"Okay," she drew out the word under her breath, then made to disapparate.

"Hermione." She stopped herself quickly and rolled her eyes, biting her tongue to halt a diatribe about the dangers of interrupting someone mid-apparation. "We figured out where Dolohov was a few days ago."

Hermione stiffened.

"What happened?" She asked, furrowing her brow in worry.

"He just tried to kill us all," the wizard said airily. "Lucky Glorfindel was here, or Legolas would have gone to Mandos early."

Hermione made an absentminded noise of protest.

"Actually, we don't know that," she explained at Gandalf's incredulous look. "Well, we know that he would have died, but I'm not sure if he would have ended up in the Hall of Mandos. The Killing Curse separates the soul from the body, after all, so he could have been sent to the same place I'll be going."

"The same place you'll be going _if_ you die," Gandalf corrected automatically, though he looked concerned about this revelation.

"You will not go to Valinor upon your passing?" Legolas himself asked from behind them.

"Speak of the Devil," Hermione muttered under her breath, then turned to face him and spoke up. "No, I am from a different world with a different God. It is under debate as to where I'd go if I died, but—" She cut herself off before she got stuck explaining the entire Christian faith. "—well, suffice to say that I'm not allowed in Valinor."

"But you are an Elf-friend!" Legolas protested, looking offended on Hermione's behalf. "Even if Mandos will not allow to enter his hall, you should still be given a place in Valinor."

"It was a condition that Manwë made when she first came here," Gandalf cut in. "He declared that since Hermione was not truly a part of this world, then she had no right to see the gods of this world."

Legolas fell silent, looking at Hermione with pity. Though he had never seen Valinor himself, he had heard tales of it and knew that Hermione had as well. He could hardly fathom how her situation must feel.

A short distance away, the hobbits were pestering Glorfindel with questions.

"Who is Manwë?" Asked Pippin. Glorfindel, however, had paled and was staring blankly into the fire; Aragorn took it upon himself to explain.

"Manwë is the first of the Valar," he told the hobbits. "Together with Varda he…"

Glorfindel stopped paying attention.

"I really need to leave," Hermione said, breaking the awkward silence between Gandalf and Legolas. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

Gandalf nodded, though Legolas still seemed unable to move.

Hermione grasped her amulet and muttered the password before disapparating. She reappeared in her office, as per usual, and noted that her boss' stool was conspicuously empty, so she made to go to the conference room across the hall.

A note was stuck on the inside of her door, flashing bright purple. Hermione grabbed it.

_**Miss Granger,**_

_**If you are reading this, then I have brought the Minister down to the conference room to see our evidence. I have made some progress in convincing the public mind that the Death Eaters are not to be trusted, but it is best if you stay out of sight for the time being.**_

_**You will find a set of two-way mirrors on the desk. Take one with you back to Middle Earth and I will contact you when your name has been cleared.**_

_**E.**_

_Ah-ha!_ Hermione thought triumphantly. _Another clue! Now I just have to figure out what 'E' stands for…_

She wilted slightly as she realized that she still didn't have the foggiest idea of who her boss was. Grumbling to herself, she set about rummaging around her office. She'd made the trip here, after all; she might as well get something out of it.

Like another cappuccino and a set of clean robes, for starters.

Once both of those were accomplished, not necessarily in that order, Hermione made her way back down to the lower levels of the abandoned Ministry building. She ended her glamour just as she pulled on the Invisibility Cloak, just in time to come around a corner and see a pair of the I.C.W.'s guards standing in front of the conference room.

She cast a one-way silencing charm and blew a raspberry in each of their faces, mentally dedicating the immature action to Harry, then continued on to the Departure Room. There were, luckily, no other guards in this area.

_Huh,_ she mused, staring at the door, which was still just barely purple-colored. _That's weird. Maybe the wards have started decaying?_

She added a few more layers and built up the ones that were still there before opening the door and stepping inside. The journey was boring—_that's a good thing_, she reminded herself—and she easily reappeared near Rivendell.

That feeling of something going terribly wrong rose up once more and Hermione was grateful that she had kept the Invisibility Cloak on. She glanced around in bewilderment, wondering why something felt different.

There were trees, then more trees, and more trees in that direction, and a few trees over there. She reached out for her apparation wards, which she used to navigate towards Rivendell when in the absence of Gandalf, and paled.

They were gone.

She focused on the Hall of Fire and apparated there immediately. Luckily it was empty, but she berated herself thoroughly for the rash action and took a deep breath before venturing outside.

There was no one around.

_Of course_, she thought, frowning. _How did I expect to find out who had taken down the wards? They're probably not around anymore anyway._

And then, in an extraordinary stroke of luck that Hermione usually associated with one Harry Potter, she heard voices from around the corner.

"…a dangerous criminal." Now why did that tone sound so familiar? Her curse scar from fifth year twitched and she reached up absently to rub it.

"I am a policeman, called a _Death Eater_, who was sent to apprehend her and bring her to justice," Hermione's jaw literally dropped as she saw Dolohov come around the corner accompanied by Elrond.

It was lucky that she still had the silencing charm up, because her next reaction was to say loudly, "You've got to be f***ing kidding me."

* * *

In Moria, Gandalf stood and gestured towards one of the archways.

"He's remembered the way!" Pippin cried cheerfully.

"Not as such," the old wizard said, his good mood somewhat restored, and unknowingly quoted Hermione's words to Elladen and Elrohir after the kitchens in Rivendell had been moved. "But when in doubt, follow your nose. The air is fresher this way."

The group moved off, but Glorfindel hung towards the back, on high alert. Hermione's words before their departure

"_It's after we get to Moria that I'm worried about."_

What was going to happen here? They had almost reached the end of their path, he could tell, but all it did was make him more on-edge. Something was coming, and he hated not knowing what it was.

* * *

Hermione ducked back into the Hall of Fire as Elrond and Dolohov passed by her, cursing up a blue storm. She was more than half tempted to rush out and capture Dolohov on her own, but she calmed herself.

It wasn't that she couldn't take him. It was that she didn't know what Elrond thought of the whole situation, and she couldn't afford to confirm whatever the Death Eater had told him by attacking him out of nowhere.

_He doesn't know the whole story_, she rolled her eyes, exasperated with both herself and Gandalf. _Someone needs to explain it to him, but I can't do it because he might not believe me!_

Someone Elrond trusted. Well, the only people who knew exactly what was going on were the fellowship. Elrond didn't know the hobbits or Boromir well enough to trust them. Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and Gandalf were all needed on the quest at some point or another.

_Which leaves Glorfindel_, she decided with a sigh. _He wasn't even supposed to go with them in the first place anyway._

She stepped into the hallway and sent one last dirty look towards Dolohov's retreating back before she focused her mind on Bellatrix's wand-turned-anchor and disapparated.

Pippin shrieked once more as Hermione's head appeared in front of them, floating in midair. She, however, had had a chance to recover from her earlier stressed state and merely glanced at him, amused, before pulling the Invisibility Cloak completely off.

She opened her mouth and began to speak rapidly, but Gandalf quickly cut her off with a, "Hermione, you forgot your silencing charm."

The witch rolled her eyes and sighed, then waved a hand in the air as if shaking away mist and began again, still speaking quite rapidly.

She didn't realize that she hadn't bothered to switch languages since coming back to Middle Earth and was still speaking a modern language on Earth, Business Standard.

Gandalf gestured for her to slow down, and she repeated herself impatiently. He replied in the same language, suddenly looking quite upset.

The rest of the fellowship stared as Hermione burst out into full-on shouting, though it did not seem directed at Gandalf. The wizard himself seemed to agree, and turned to Glorfindel before saying something in the same language as Hermione.

The Elf was naturally quite confused and just raised an eyebrow. Gandalf sighed and repeated himself. In Sindarin, this time.

"Dolohov is trying to turn Elrond against Hermione," Glorfindel and Legolas glanced at each other incredulously, then turned as one back to Gandalf. "We agreed that someone close to Elrond should explain the story to him."

"And you decided I was the one to do it," the Elf said with a sigh and looked at Hermione. "What of the words you spoke to me on the eve of our departure?"

Hermione frowned and tilted her head to the side.

"What did I say?"

Glorfindel stared at her incredulously.

"I asked you if you were worried, and you replied that it was only Moria that you were concerned about."

"I did say that, didn't I?" Hermione furrowed her brow and glanced around the mines, as though the answer would suddenly pop up right in front of her. "Why did I say that?"

She reached up with her hand to press against her temple and repeated, "Why did I say that?"

Gandalf was growing impatient.

"We cannot allow the Last Homely House to fall to the _Death Eaters_," he said. "No doubt the fellowship can survive without you for a few miles, Lord Glorfindel, while you explain to Elrond."

Glorfindel grumbled some more but stayed back with Hermione (who was still frowning and glaring at an unfortunate rock) as the rest of the group moved past them.

"Hermione?" He prompted finally. She shook her head but still seemed distracted.

"Take my hand," she reached out to him. "I'm going to apparate us back to Rivendell."

He grasped the offered hand hesitantly and she pulled him closer before glancing up at his face.

"This is going to be a bit uncomfortable."

They twisted into the tube of apparation without any more warning. When they reappeared in Rivendell, Glorfindel staggered with an unusual lack of grace. Hermione stepped sideways and used the hand not still holding his to grab his opposite arm and steady him. He leaned on her for a moment before recovering his balance and standing straight once more.

Hermione stepped backwards quickly, her cheeks faintly pink, and released him.

"The first time is always the worst," she said, then blushed even more and cursed her dirty mind. She continued on before Glorfindel could notice. "I think they were heading towards Elrond's office."

The Elf was looking at her curiously, but reserved his comments for a later date. He hurried off in the direction she had indicated.

"Damn it!" Hermione exclaimed as soon as he had disappeared around the corner.

She'd forgotten to give the anchor to a different member of the fellowship.

_I need to apparate back into Moria before they get too far away._

She left.

* * *

Glorfindel walked down the hall purposefully, his hand lazily drifting near his sword hilt. He'd been somewhat distracted earlier by the fetching shade of pink Hermione had turned (since when did she blush?) but refocused now on more important things.

"Glorfindel!" He nodded to the twins and made to walk past them, then paused and turned back around.

"Elladen." The Elf in question blinked and glanced nervously at his brother, who looked equally nervous. _Dammit, they're planning something_. "Elrohir. Where is your father?"

"In his study," the former said.

"He was speaking with someone from Hermione's country," the latter continued.

"But Ada said he needed to think over everything he had been told." Glorfindel growled as the twins exchanged phrases. Elrohir gulped and finished the story quickly.

"He just left."

"Did you hear anything he said?"

The twins glanced at one another.

"Nothing we believed."

"Good," Glorfindel answered shortly, already turning back towards Elrond's study. "None of it was true."

The twins exchanged looks again and hurried after him.

* * *

When Hermione reappeared in the mines, the others had already gotten a significant distance away. She squeaked in surprised fright at the sudden darkness and quickly lit her wand.

She managed to catch up with the fellowship just as they reached Balin's tomb. Gimli had covered his face; the others were gathered around Gandalf as he read from a tattered book.

"…we cannot get out. We cannot get out."

"Well doesn't that sound inviting," Hermione quipped, her voice sounding slightly forced. The fellowship turned towards her. This time it was Boromir who let out a quiet grunt in surprise at her sudden appearance.

"Welcome back," Gandalf said dryly, closing the book and putting it inside his robes. "We have just discovered Balin's tomb."

There was a question hidden in his tone, and Hermione realized he was wondering if this was the cause for her earlier concern. She shook her head at him and shrugged, raising her arms in a universal _who knows?_ gesture.

She had just opened her mouth to ask him about her newly-discovered (and very troubling) memory loss when a loud _boom_ shook the chambers. Frodo drew Sting from its sheath.

"Orcs!" He cried, looking from the sword to the door.

"Bar the door," Gandalf ordered. "But leave the east ajar. We may yet escape if we can delay them a little."

Boromir and Aragorn did as he said as quickly as they could; the former stuck his head out briefly to see what was coming, then drew it back to avoid a black arrow.

He turned to the company and the delivery of his next few words endeared him to Hermione for the rest of her life.

"They have a cave troll."

She stifled a giggle (somehow it didn't seem appropriate in this setting) and pulled off her outer robes. She debated internally for a moment but finally drew her sword and left the Elder wand in her sleeve.

"Hermione?" Merry questioned, staring at the object in her hand. It was long but thin; not as heavy as the one and a half hand swords that Aragorn and Boromir used, but not quite as short as the long knives that Legolas kept strapped to his back.

_That's right. Éowyn is the only other woman in this world who knows which end of a sword is used for stabbing._

She was spared responding by the flood of Orcs who swarmed through the door.

_I knew there was a reason I should have left Glorfindel here,_ she thought with in inward groan. And Orc charged her and she lifted her sword.

* * *

"Lord Elrond?" The Elf-lord lifted his head and stared at the door for a moment before responding.

"Glorfindel."

The door opened and the Balrog-slayer stepped inside, followed by Elrohir and Elladen.

"How is it that you have returned so quickly?"

The twins glanced at each other in alarm, foreseeing the end of Hermione's spontaneous transportation.

"Hermione apparated me here." They groaned quietly in tandem and the two Elf-lords spared them short, amused stares.

"Yes," Elrond said slowly, delaying his explanation. "I figured that the wards she created had been brought down when Dolohov arrived here."

The other three Elves tensed and watched him. He sat down in his chair, still deep in thought.

"Well?" Demanded Glorfindel once a few minutes had passed. Elrond looked up, forcefully summoned back to the real world.

"He was a servant of the Enemy," he declared. The Lord of Gondolin sagged in relief. The twins looked at one another.

"But Ada," Elrohir began.

"How do you know?" Elladen finished. Elrond cursed the day that Hermione had told them about 'twin-speak.'

"The darkness of Mordor hangs on him like a veil."

The room fell silent as they contemplated what they had been told.

"There is more that you should know," Glorfindel said finally. "About Hermione's past and her homeland."

The other three leaned forward eagerly to hear the story.

* * *

"How the hell did I forget about this?" Hermione muttered to herself as she stood between Gandalf and Boromir, surrounding Frodo and in turn surrounded by hordes of goblins. Boromir glanced at her with a sort of morbidly amused expression on his face.

"If you will recall," he muttered to her. "I never wanted to go this way at all."

"Trust the Gondorian to say 'I told you so.'" Hermione smirked. Gandalf looked at them, exasperated.

"Is this really the best time for your peculiar sense of humor to show up?"

"If not now, then when?" She asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"After we have been cast down into the—" Boromir cut himself off as the goblins began scurrying away. "Well, look at that."

"Our peculiar sense of humor seems to have scared them away." She resisted the temptation to high-five Boromir, and made a mental note to teach him what a high-five was. As it was, they smirked at each other.

Their happiness was short-lived. Gandalf paled as he saw lights flickering down the hall from them.

"What is that?" Legolas asked, instinctively nocking an arrow. Hermione paled as well as she remembered exactly why she should have left Glorfindel with the fellowship.

_Well, no time to get him now_, she decided. _The thing will've caught up to them before I could even find him._

"Balrog," she managed to say out loud, in a strangled voice. "Run. Now."

She then followed her own advice and turned tail towards the bridge of Khazad-Dûm, grabbing Frodo's collar and dragging him with her. The others followed suit.

The goblins reappeared as they reached the bridge, hidden high up with a seemingly endless supply of arrows.

_Where did they get the wood for the shafts all the way down here, anyway? _Hermione wondered irrationally. She cast a shield charm around herself and Frodo and began shepherding him over the bridge.

She looked back and saw Merry and Pippin following them, protected by Boromir and his shield. They made it across soon after.

_Oh!_ Hermione realized. _I'm a witch. I can apparate_.

She spared a short moment to face-palm, then apparated back to the others. Gandalf was glaring at the rapidly approaching Balrog and Aragorn was standing beside him; Legolas and Gimli were closest to her so she grabbed them each by the arm and apparated back across the bridge. The almost-healed skin on her forearm split open again and she cursed quietly.

Aragorn had already begun running across the bridge, followed by Gandalf. By the time Hermione looked up, Aragorn was only a few feet away and Gandalf had stopped in the middle, facing the Balrog.

The creature took a slow step onto the bridge.

"You shall not pass!" Hermione absently noted that Gandalf had somehow lost his hat. What a shame; she'd liked that hat. He kept shouting at the Balrog, but it took another threatening step forward.

_Hold on_, Hermione thought, with a brilliant stroke of inspiration. _My affinity is fire!_

Gandalf's staff was glowing brighter than she had ever seen it, but the Balrog was barely swayed. Hermione reached out with a tendril of mind-thought and gently probed the creature's mental defenses. It didn't look like he had any.

_Surprise attack it is, then_, she decided, rolling up her metaphysical sleeves. The Balrog roared as she closed her eyes and attacked its mind with all of her power.

_Just like Fiendfyre, _Hermione told herself, breathing deeply. She reached out to recall the piece of her mind that was guarding the Void; she needed the extra power. _Beating the Balrog is the most pressing issue here._

The connection to her mental guardian was gone.

* * *

The rest of the fellowship looked between the Balrog (who was roaring and brandishing its whip), Gandalf (who was still sticking his glowing staff in the Balrog's—well, the place where its face would have been if it hadn't been, y'know, made out of fire) and Hermione (who was standing in place with her eyes closed and, to their view, doing nothing except bleed and frown).

"What is happening?" Gimli asked finally. Legolas, who was standing closest to him, was so distracted that he answered without animosity.

"I have no idea."

Then, suddenly, Hermione shouted and staggered, reaching up to clutch her head before falling to her knees. The Balrog, unburdened from the mental attack, took another step towards Gandalf. The bridge broke under his weight.

Merry and Pippin ran to Hermione, who was kneeling, groaning, and still holding her head.

"Hermione?" They looked at each other with wide eyes. "Hermione we have to go! The Orcs are coming—Hermione!"

Her eyes were shut and she didn't seem to have heard them.

Gandalf turned away from the Balrog and turned to face the fellowship. It seemed as if everything then happened at once: The whip flashed upwards and grabbed his ankle; Frodo screamed and tried to run forward; Aragorn caught him and pulled him away; and Gandalf fell.

The goblin arrows were flying faster. Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn ushered the hobbits away, leaving Boromir to pick up Hermione and carry her after them.

* * *

_That has got to be the stupidest thing I have done in my entire life,_ Hermione managed to think through the pain. She extricated consciousness from her ruined Occlumency shields and, still in her mindscape, examined the fallen walls and now tangled and ripped memories. _It will take forever to fix this. And why the hell couldn't I reach my guardian?_

She tried to find the thin mind-tendril that had connected her to the watcher in the space-between-worlds. It wasn't there.

_Was it destroyed?_ She wondered, still staring at her damaged thoughts._ It's not really a part of my consciousness, so I suppose it's possible. But I should have had some side effects, like confusion or memory loss or—_

"Son of a gun," she said out loud, her shock jolting her back into the real world. She absently noted that she was slung over Boromir's shoulder in a somewhat undignified manner.

She cracked open her eyes just in time to get a face full of sunlight. She cursed again.

Boromir set her down gently on a rock. The fellowship spread apart, grieving for Gandalf. Hermione pushed her own feelings back.

_I need time to meditate if I'm going to fix this,_ she thought, once again closing her eyes and glancing over her mindscape.

"I tried to turn back the Balrog using the mind arts," she told the fellowship at large, not particularly concerned with whether they understood her. "And it broke through my mental defenses. I'm going to need to meditate if I'm to be of any use to you."

She gestured to Aragorn, who came closer.

"Make for Lothlórien," she told him. "I'll meet you there." He nodded.

"Don't fear overmuch for Gandalf," she told the rest of the group. "He's a stubborn old Maia and the Balrog won't find him an weak opponent."

She remembered that much, at least. Now.

They looked up. She focused what little mental power she still had and stood up. She apparated to Rivendell before anyone could start asking questions.

* * *

Erestor walked slowly down the hallway, thinking over everything Glorfindel had told him about Hermione. The other Elf had come upon him in the library and explained everything he knew; they had just separated a few feet before: Erestor to think, Glorfindel to bathe.

He barely stopped himself from leaping into the air when Hermione appeared in front of him.

Hermione could feel her mental state dissipating; the gash on her arm had deepened and lengthened.

_I can't even focus enough for a proper apparation,_ she thought. She looked up and saw Erestor. _Oh, look, an Elf. Hello, Elfie._

"Lady Hermione! What happened?"

Hermione swayed from side to side.

"Balrog—forgot—how the _hell_ could I—?" She staggered over to a wall and caught herself on it. Erestor shouted for help and reached forward to steady her. "Gandalf has—fallen."

She could feel tears falling down her cheeks.

_But he ends up alright, doesn't he? _She thought. _Is that right? Or did he die?_

Glorfindel ran around the corner, hand on his sword hilt, closely followed by Elrond.

"Hermione!" Her full weight fell on Erestor and he staggered, unable to support her. Glorfindel quickly took his place and caught her. Elrond took one look at her drawn, blank expression and the blood dripping onto the floor.

"This way," he ordered, and turned towards the Hall of Healing. Glorfindel picked her up and carried her after him.

* * *

Glorfindel, Elladen, Elrohir, Erestor and Arwen stood in the hallway, silent. It seemed to take forever before Elrond emerged from the room. He glanced around at all of them.

"She had a deep cut on her arm and a burn on her right foot," he began. "I have set both to healing; they were simple injuries that should not be life threatening."

The others glanced at each other, wondering why he seemed so somber.

"She should have woken up by now. I know not what else ails her."

He stepped away from the door.

"You may visit with her." Glorfindel swept past him before the sentence was even finished. Elrond let him go, a glint of amusement in his eyes.

"If she wakes, fetch me," he told the others, who entered the room at a more sedate pace.

Hermione was lying on the sheets, seemingly asleep. Glorfindel had already claimed the chair to the right of the bed, near the headboard. The twins claimed seats on the foot of the bed, one on each side. Arwen sat to her left and reached out to take Hermione's hand. Erestor stood at the foot of the bed.

They stayed that way for a long time without speaking. Soon enough, a messenger came from Elrond summoning Erestor. Arwen left with him, after squeezing Hermione's hand and whispering something in her ear.

The twins stayed until after the sun had set, and only left when they were no longer able to keep their eyes fully open.

Now alone with Hermione, Glorfindel felt no compunctions in taking her hand and resting his arm on the bed next to her. He fell asleep that way, one hand cushioning his head on the bed and the other holding hers.

* * *

_I lost consciousness again._

Hermione regained her capacity for coherent thought about an hour after she reached Rivendell. She looked around her mindscape and sighed. Nothing had fixed itself during her brief sojourn into La-La Land.

Not that she'd expected it to, really. But one could hope.

She created a metaphysical trash bag and began picking up the rubble from her ruining Occlumency walls. She couldn't start fixing her memories until all that was cleared up.

It seemed to take forever; days of uninterrupted work. As it was, it really only took about three hours. She glanced around at the torn and tangled memories littering her otherwise pristine mindscape and reached out to her senses, delaying the inevitable.

She didn't open her eyes, but she could feel someone's hand in hers. She felt someone's warm breath near her ear, and then Arwen's voice.

"_Come back to him."_

_Him?_ She wondered, befuddled. _Who is 'him'?_

She shook off the question and turned back to her memories. She sighed before rolling up her metaphysical sleeves and setting to.

This took her longer. The sun had long set in the real world by the time she had finished piecing together and then sorting them.

Task complete, Hermione reached out once more to her senses, again leaving her eyes shut. Someone was holding her hand again. She thought about opening her eyes to see if Arwen had come back, but it seemed so difficult…

She fell into a natural sleep.

* * *

**Worst. Mental. Breakdown. Ever. I feel bad giving it to her.**

**Anyway, I have noticed that I have a tendency of starting chapters with "Hermione woke up…" and ending them with "…she went to sleep [insert adverb here]." ****I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, there's a kind of… consistency? Oh, I don't know… I'm running a bit of a fever and I haven't had nearly enough sleep so I'm rambling somewhat. Don't mind me.**

**By the way, no I haven't forgotten the golden ward. I'm just delaying the explanation. I think it'll be in the next chapter but that is subject to change.**

**Speaking of the next chapter, this last three were already very thoroughly outlined when I finished number 5, which is why they were finished so fast. The next one…not so much. I apologize in advance for the wait, but it shouldn't be a two-year gap like the one between chapters 3 and 4…. (Still feel bad about that.)**

**Also: The Hermione-can't-go-to-Valinor tidbit. That's been in the works since the earliest drafts of this story; I just hadn't managed to find a place to put it. It's important. Remember it. **

**Er… there was something else… OH RIGHT "Lord Salazar." I forgot to mention that the newspaper Hermione read, from the Department Chair, was folded (I'll put that in when I get around to editing that chapter). She hasn't actually seen a picture of him yet.**

**More on that next chapter. Probably.**

**Anyway, happy Superbowl weekend!**


	9. Questions

**Disclaimer: ...I took an AP yesterday…and another AP today…and I have three more to go…I DON'T HAVE THE ENERGY FOR THIS.**

**Posted: 5/10/12**

**Words: 4,609**

**Happiness and/or silver linings: None. At all. The College Board took them away and crushed them into oblivion.**

* * *

**9: Questions**

* * *

Hermione woke up slowly, without opening her eyes. She wiggled her toes to see if they were still working (they were), then her fingers (they were as well).

Someone was holding her hand. How curious.

She resisted the urge to moan as she opened her eyes—her head felt as though Grawp had trampled through it—and turned her gaze sideways.

Glorfindel was sprawled across the side of her bed, fast asleep, his hand in hers.

_Aw,_ she thought involuntarily. _So cute._

He'd probably be embarrassed if he knew that she'd seen him—on the other hand, this was the perfect time for a prank…but then again, he'd been worried about her so that might be a little insensitive.

A little sound of frustration escaped her and he started to stir. Hermione panicked and retreated into her mindscape, to all intents and purposes falling back to sleep.

Glorfindel stirred and sat up, his hair (for once) not lying neatly across his shoulders, but sticking out perpendicular to the floor. He carefully extricated his hand from Hermione's hold and examined her for signs of distress. She appeared to be sleeping.

The hand he'd been holding twitched slightly, then moved around a bit as if searching for something. Eventually, it stopped moving and Hermione's eyes twitched instead. She made a quiet noise and opened them.

She glanced around the room quickly, until her eyes fell on him and she smiled a bit. He smiled back, relieved. Her silent greeting didn't stay silent for long, though—she spotted his hair and began to giggle, then chuckle, and finally she was full-on laughing.

"What?" Glorfindel asked, oblivious.

Hermione tried and failed to say something several times in a row. She finally managed to choke out, "Hair!" He reached up and touched it, then rolled his eyes upon realizing the state it was in.

"And that's how I know you've recovered," he muttered, pretending to be cross. Hermione calmed herself and then groaned, clutching her head.

"Eh," she said at his questioning look. "I'm mostly recovered, but my Occlumency shields—that's what I use to guard my mind—need to be—"

"Perhaps it would be best if you started your explanation with what got you into this state," Glorfindel interrupted. Hermione opened her mouth to begin again, but he cut her off once more. "_After_ I have gathered the others."

Hermione gave him a sour look but remained silent. Glorfindel stood slowly, feeling his neck crack from his awkward sleeping arrangements. He seemed reluctant to leave.

Hermione sighed.

"Sit down," she told him, and glanced around. "Where's my wand?"

_Did I just call the Elder wand "my wand"? I suppose I've been calling Bellatrix's wand "mine" for years now, so it's not that surprising… _She winced; thinking hurt.

Glorfindel pointed towards the night stand and sat back down in his seat. He was still covered in the dust and grime from the road; he hoped that Hermione's explanation would be quick so that he could bathe and eat.

Hermione focused on the memory of reading a book—specifically, the part of _The Two Towers_ where Merry and Pippin discovered that Gandalf was, in fact, alive.

"_Expecto patronum_." Her Patronus had changed form over the years—it was only to be expected, now that she had grown into herself and matured. It took the form of a lioness.**[1]** "Fetch Elrond, Elladen, Elrohir, Erestor, and Arwen, please. Tell them I'm awake and I'm ready to explain what happened."

The lioness twitched her ear and nodded regally before turning and bounding off through the wall.

"What was that?" Glorfindel asked, with only a raised eyebrow showing his surprise.

"A Patronus," Hermione said, putting her wand back on the nightstand. "It wards off Dementors—the things that guard Azkaban; I think I told you about them?—and can be used to pass messages."

"Useful."

She began shifting about, trying to formulate her story so she didn't have to think too hard; he helped her sit up and stick a pillow between her back and the headboard.

The twins arrived first. They glanced at each other, then looked at Hermione and Glorfindel slyly. Hermione pouted; they had obviously recovered from the prank she'd played on them just before leaving Rivendell.

"Did you stay all night?" Elrohir asked Glorfindel, his tone deceptively innocent. Glorfindel didn't answer but eyed the twins warily. They took his non-answer for confirmation—which it was—and looked at one another.

"You so would," they said together, and sat down where they had before, on either side of the foot of Hermione's bed. Hermione and Glorfindel watched them blankly for a moment, before Hermione realized what they must have been talking about and burst out laughing.

The other three Elves looked at each other, checking for abnormal hair color, strange facial hair, or tie-dyed robes.

"What?" Elladen asked finally.

"You—prank—believed it—_honestly_—how—?" She got out around her laughter. They waited until she had calmed herself to sporadic giggles interspersed with groans and temple-rubbing, and Elladen repeated his question.

"You are referring to the night we tied him to a tree," Hermione said, sticking her thumb at Glorfindel. The twins nodded. "That was a joke."

Glorfindel just looked confused, while the twins gaped at Hermione.

"You mean you didn't actually—?" Elrohir asked.

"Nope," Hermione replied cheerfully.

"What—?" Glorfindel began, but Hermione cut him off.

"I'll explain to you later."

The twins glanced at each other, then back at Hermione. They seemed to waver between irritation and amusement for a moment, but the amusement finally won over. They bowed to her dramatically, still sitting on the bed.

"All hail the queen of practical jokes," they said theatrically, in sync. Hermione spread her hands and closed her eyes, pretending to bask in their admiration.

"What's all this?" Erestor had arrived. The twins began spontaneously inventing a wildly untrue story involving thestrals (Erestor wasn't sure they actually existed, seeing how Hermione had never explained them to him), their grandmother (Galadriel) and some of Gandalf's fireworks.

While they were fabricating their tale (Hermione and Glorfindel were listening in appreciation and making noises of agreement when prompted), Elrond and Arwen arrived together. Hermione's Patronus followed them in and, after bowing her head to Hermione, dissipated.

"You all wanted to know what happened," Hermione said, her voice not loud, per se, but pitched to carry. Conversation in the room died off and all eyes turned to her. "I'm sure Glorfindel has told you that the fellowship was forced to go into Moria." There were a few nods. "Then I'll start when I had to leave for a moment to visit my world. Well, more specifically, with when I returned. As soon as I got here, you see, I noticed that the Apparation wards were down.

"I apparated into the Hall of Fire and came across Elrond and Dolohov. He was telling you some complete and utter rubbish about me being a dangerous criminal."

Elrond nodded and spoke up. "His story was false, of course. I could sense the shadow of the Enemy upon him."

"Is that even possible?" Hermione asked, momentarily diverted. Elrond raised one of his infamous eyebrows.

"I'm an Elf," he replied archly. "Of course it is."

"I mean, I knew that you had the strongest mental power of the races, that's why I gave Glorfindel the anchor—the anchor!" She face-palmed, but decided she could be excused for the lapse. Part of her mind had been sneakily destroyed, after all. "I could have used to anchor to get you when the Balrog—I'm getting ahead of myself."

Glorfindel stiffened at the word "Balrog." It was the only thing he was afraid of besides Hermione in her evil-scheming-to-reduce-Rivendell-to-chaos mood.

"Anyway. I couldn't be sure if Elrond knew Dolohov was lying, and I figured I should go get someone he trusted to tell the full story. Gandalf and I talked it over and eventually decided on Glorfindel."

He made a grumbling noise that could have been interpreted as, "Without my consent." Hermione smirked and continued.

"I apparated him here, and he went off to find you. But then I realized that if I wanted to keep track of the fellowship, I had to apparate back quickly, before they moved too far.

"So I went back, and I caught up to them just as they found the tomb of Balin. We were attacked by Orcs and goblins. We thought we were safe when they ran away, but it turns out that they weren't running from us, they were running from a Balrog."

Glorfindel tensed again

_I really can't believe I forgot about that,_ she thought again.

"We ran towards the bridge of Khazad-Dûm, with the Balrog chasing after us. I got Frodo, Gimli, and Legolas across and Boromir brought Merry and Pippin; Aragorn came running after us and Gandalf was last."

She paused to take a deep breath. Even now that she knew he would be alright, the memory was painful.

"He faced off with the Balrog. Now, this is where it gets complicated. My affinity is for fire; I had the brilliant idea of trying to control the Balrog using my mind, like I do with Fiendfyre." She paused to gather her thoughts and attempted to calm her raging headache.

"It turns out that Balrogs are a lot stronger than Fiendfyre. I held on for about a minute, but I could feel it winning the battle.

"And now we get even more complicated. To get between the worlds, Gandalf and I have to pass through the Void."

She could see Elrohir already getting lost.

"Stay with me," she said. "There are three main parts to someone's mind—four for some. The conscious part, which is what you use to make decisions and where your current thoughts are; the subconscious part, which influences your consciousness but which you're not really aware of; and your memories. If you're a student of the mind arts, then you have a fourth part: your Occlumency shields, which guard the other three parts."

She glanced around to make sure they were following.

"I'm good enough at Occlumency that I can leave a little piece of my mind—kind of a combination of the shields and my subconscious—in the Void. It was supposed to alert me to any intruders that were not myself or Gandalf. And that's what it would have done, if it had been outright attacked." If the avatar had been suddenly destroyed, she would have felt the backlash. Instead, it had been slowly and carefully dismantled (at least, as best she could tell), thus leaving no backlash and no way for her to sense its destruction.

She frowned, berating herself for not checking on the mental guardian more often. It wouldn't have taken much; she just needed to extend a mind-tendril—a piece of her consciousness—towards the construct to make sure it was still there.

"Returning to my story. The Balrog had repelled my attack and was now making its own. I tried to recall the piece of my mind that was in the Void, but it wasn't there. That surprised me and threw me off even more. The Balrog tore through my mind like wildfire."

She shuddered, remembering how painful it had been. Glorfindel patted her hand comfortingly.

"Without that to worry about, it stepped onto the bridge, which cracked. It fell. Gandalf turned away, but it pulled him down as well. Boromir grabbed me and the fellowship left.

"My mind was almost broken. I had to get somewhere quiet where I could pass out and meditate—Rivendell was the first place I thought of so I apparated here." She took a deep breath. "At the time, I was rather distressed; now that I've had time to think about it, I've realized that Gandalf won't go down all that easily."

The Elves in the room glanced at each other, then at Glorfindel (the only person there besides, apparently, Hermione, who had first-hand experience with Balrogs). He avoided their eyes.

"And then I remember scaring the living daylights out of Erestor before I passed out," Hermione finished, looking at the Elf in question.

There was silence for a moment, as the Elves digested her story.

"How did it—the piece of your mind that was in the Void—get destroyed without you noticing? And when?" Erestor asked. Hermione sighed and shook her head.

"I don't know. I think its destruction caused memory loss and confusion, though, and the first bit of that that I can remember is the night the fellowship departed."

"You forgot your cloak," Arwen realized. "I did think that was odd. Not that you'd forgotten something, just that it had been a cloak. I expected you to forget clean underthings, or something."

"Thank you, Arwen," Hermione said loudly, turning faintly pink and glaring alternatively at the snickering twins and the smirking Arwen. "Since the—demi-Horcrux, I suppose we could call it—was not made up of any piece of my consciousness, anyone sneaky enough and skilled enough in the mind arts would have been able to destroy it. And thus the passage between the two worlds has been open for God knows how long, and the only way I could tell that no one had snuck through while I was here is that the wards were undisturbed, but I actually don't know that they weren't—" Hermione cut herself off with a deep breath.

_It won't do anyone any good if you have another hysterical breakdown,_ she told herself sternly. _You need to finish healing the rest of the damage to your consciousness and then rebuild your Occlumency shields._

She glanced around at the Elves.

"Questions?"

"Several," Elrond answered dryly. "But I believe that you do not know that answer to them any more than I do."

The corners of her mouth quirked ruefully. "No, probably not."

He stood, prompting the others to stand as well.

"You need peace and quiet," he pronounced, but directed the statement more towards the other occupants of the room. The twins pouted. "But since that is unlikely to happen, please feel free to send your messenger to Arwen or the twins whenever you need anything."

The aforementioned Elves stared at his back as he beat a hasty retreat. Hermione blinked, twice, unable to compute what Elrond had just said.

"Did he just… make a joke?"

The twins shook their heads in disbelief and Arwen looked at Hermione with an expression that asked, "What just happened?" Glorfindel broke the silence by standing.

"I have not eaten since yesterday," he pronounced.

"And probably not bathed for at least a month." Glorfindel shot a dirty look at Arwen. One of the twins opened his mouth, but Glorfindel's warning glare cut him off; Elrohir sighed and filed away the brilliantly lewd suggestion he'd been about to make for later. He bowed his head to Hermione, then to Arwen, and made his way out of the room.

Hermione glanced between the twins and Arwen. The _elleth _looked like she was preparing to leave, while the twins seemed to be settling in.

"_Come back to him…" Who did she mean?_ Arwen made to stand up._ Oh, you're not getting away that easily. _

"Do you realize how vulnerable he'll be in the bath?" Hermione asked the twins, quirking an eyebrow, desperately fighting back the obviously evil part of her mind that said, _Ooh, Glorfindel in the bath…_. "You can't possibly be about to let this opportunity pass."

They looked at each other, then turned back to Hermione. "Brilliant!" They exclaimed at the same time, before hurrying out of the room.

"And where do you think you're going?" Hermione asked mildly as Arwen stood up to follow them. The Elf sighed and sat back down.

"I thought I heard you say something while I was… _incapacitated,_" she continued, vaguely curious. "'Come back to him,' or something like that."

Arwen smiled softly.

"Of course you hadn't noticed."

"Noticed what?" Hermione asked, exasperated. Her not knowing things had the tendency to end in death and disaster.

"He loves you," Arwen replied gently.

"_Who?_" Hermione asked, now severely frustrated. She was notoriously clever about almost everything—_except_ men. Or, as the case may be, Elves. Being immortal didn't exactly lend itself to having normal relationships with men. As for the Elves—in the beginning, they had been off-limits; then the twins had become like her Harry-and-Ron. Although she had carried the torch for Haldir for a while…

"If you think about it long enough, I'm sure you'll figure it out," her friend replied, waving a hand in the air. "But despite his reputation for bravery, he's been a bit chicken about this whole courtship thing."

She wrinkled her nose. Hermione choked on air at hearing Arwen call someone "chicken."

"How long?" She asked in a strangled voice. Arwen gave her a pitying look.

"A long time," she answered cryptically. "Elves fall in love slowly and stay that way; when He allowed us to live forever, Eru also took into account that we could be lonely, so we will love only one person for our whole lives. The Second-Born are different; you fall in and out of love quickly and frequently."

"And 'he' knows that, presumably," Hermione muttered. She wracked her brain, trying to figure out who Arwen could possibly be talking about. The _elleth_ eyed her.

"You really have no idea, do you?" She asked finally. "How can you possibly be _that_ oblivious?"

Hermione frowned and opened her mouth to rebut. Arwen cut her off. "We will speak of this more after the Ring has been dealt with."

Hermione arched an eyebrow, deciding to let it go. For the moment.

"Elrond's going to be mad that you're not going to Valinor."

Arwen rolled her eyes in a vaguely Hermione-ish manner. "He'll get over it."

Hermione smirked and mentally patted herself on the back for making her friends so utterly human-like.

Arwen stood. "If that was all…" Hermione nodded. "Then perhaps I should catch Glorfindel and warn him before he relaxes too much."

Hermione chuckled and made a shooing motion to the _elleth_, her thoughts once again straying towards, _Ooh, Glorfindel in the bath…_

* * *

Occlumency was boring.

There was really no way to get around it. It was fascinating the first time, because you were doing things with your mind that you had never done before. The second or third times you had to rebuild your shields it was somewhat interesting too, because you could make improvements and perfect them.

But there came a point when it was just boring.

_Why do I even bother?_ Hermione muttered to herself, surveying her mindscape. She had a _lot_ of work left to do before she could even think about getting out of bed, let alone casting any spells. Even the cheering charm was probably beyond her focus.

She pulled herself back into consciousness and stretched, glancing around the room. There were the chairs, there was the wall, there was Glorfindel, there was that pretty painting of a fish, there was her wand…

_Eh…wait a minute…_ She rotated her head back to the left by about sixty degrees. _That is Glorfindel! All cleaned up, too. And…hey, why does _he_ get food when _I'm_ the invalid?_

"Hungry?" Glorfindel asked, lifting a covered plate heretofore hidden from view by its position on the floor.

_I am not drooling,_ Hermione told herself firmly. _But I think I _am_ in love with Glorfindel. No big deal._

She smiled at Glorfindel innocently. "Thanks!"

"You're welcome." He watched her for a moment, then shook his head and returned his attention to his own plate.

They stayed in their companionable silence for a few more minutes, before Glorfindel tilted his head to the side and looked at Hermione in sudden curiosity.

"You wouldn't happen to know why the twins broke into my room while I was getting lunch, do you?"

Hermione blinked. He'd been going to get lunch when he left her room, right before she talked to Arwen and just after she told the twins…oh.

"We're not _entirely_ attached by the hip, you know," she retorted, softening her words with a teasing grin. Glorfindel was unconvinced.

"Hmm," he lifted his head straight. "You're hiding something."

"Me?" Hermione's eyes widened in almost comical fright, although she was mostly successful at disguising the emotion as innocent surprise. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You sent the twins after me again," he concluded, closing his eyes and sighing heavily.

"I had to talk to Arwen!" Hermione protested, feeling a bit guilty. "She said she would call them off afterwards."

Glorfindel opened one eye to peer at her.

"Really?" Hermione nodded slowly, unsure of why he was making that strange facial expression. He opened his mouth again but seemed to think better of what he was going to say and simply filled it with a food-laden fork instead.

"What?" She asked, her voice not quite as firmly demanding as she wanted it to be. Her heart rate had inexplicably sped up. He sighed and set the fork down so deliberately that it made her want to slam the plate against the wall.

"I just—" He looked up and met her eyes, then looked away after less than a second. "Why _me?_"

Hermione relaxed and suppressed her giggles. Arwen was making her paranoid.

"Because I _like_ you, silly," she said. "I do it to Elrond, Arwen, and Gandalf, too, because I like them as well."

He blinked owlishly, surprised enough to make eye contact again.

"But—"

"My two best friends loved pranks," she said, her voice softening as she thought of Harry and Ron. Her eyes got a little watery as she remembered where Harry was now. "I grew up with two male best friends; we expressed emotion by leaving frogs in each other's beds and stealing homework and hiding broomsticks and sneaking Canary Creams in to Harry's treacle tart—"

She cut herself off with a deep breath. Glorfindel was staring at her; it was most he'd ever heard her talk about her childhood. She flushed a little and ducked her head.

"I had to re-sort all my memories," she explained softly, without being prompted. "They're a little fresh right now."

He nodded and turned his gaze to the plate on his lap.

"Where are they now?"

Hermione winced. _Should have seen that one coming._

"I don't—" She sighed. "Ron is missing but probably still alive. Possibly still alive. I don't know; I haven't seen him in a long time. Harry is—" She cut herself off, staring at the fish painting hung on the wall to her right. Glorfindel was watching her curiously.

"My people weren't meant to live forever," she said finally, her voice very quiet. She closed her eyes. "Harry's gone mad."

Glorfindel recoiled, horrified, and examined her very closely. Hermione took note and chuckled.

"It's not going to happen to me," she reassured him. "My immortality is due to the Elixir of Life—that purple drink I make every few years—which renews and recreates the cells—er, the parts of my body—rather than simply preserving them. Harry doesn't have that renewal, because he's been deprived of his _version_ of the Elixir." She wrinkled her nose, shaking the image of Ginny feeding Harry out of her mind and trying to get rid of her growing migraine at the same time.

"Good," the Elf ventured cautiously. "That you're not going to go mad. I'm sorry about your friend."

Hermione smiled slightly.

"He may recover; his ex-fiancée has been feeding him his little Elixir—!" She suddenly cut herself off, her eyes going blank with thought.

_I wonder what would happen if I gave him a dose of the Elixir of Life? _There was always, however, the possibility that it could have a detrimental effect. _I'll have to check it with E._

"Hermione?" She blinked and refocused her eyes to see Glorfindel's concerned face less than four inches from her own. She turned pink and cursed Arwen under her breath, focusing on thoughts of Balrogs (the most distracting thing that came to mind).

"Sorry," she said after recovering herself. "I'll be like that for a few more days; having your mind raided is similar to suffering a concussion. It's hard to focus, I'm easily distracted, light bothers me, and I'll need a lot of sleep."

He nodded. "What were you thinking about?"

"Oh, well, it occurred to me to wonder what would happen if I gave Harry some of the Elixir of Life." Glorfindel didn't have much to contribute on the subject, and she didn't really feel like explaining things to him.

Their conversation digressed into more lighthearted things; eventually, the Elf made his way towards the door, a plate in each hand.

Hermione contemplated returning to her Occlumency work after he left, but eventually rejected the idea. Too much had happened, and she needed to analyze it now that she could think clearly again.

"Let's start at the beginning," she muttered to herself, and flicked her wand up.

"Harry had a vision. He went to Russia." She began writing her thoughts in the air in shorthand. "Staging it as a D.A. reunion, he found an old hedgewitch and got her to send me the first letter."

"If we want to be really factual, he entered the house, did something, then left it the next day." Hermione actually felt her heart skip a beat at the old man's words. She turned her head to glare at E, sitting comfortably on the stool to her right.

"Can't you knock or something?" He smiled at her benignly but said nothing. Hermione corrected what she had written in the air then, still shooting the odd glare at him, continued.

"Anyway. After leaving the house, he met up with the entire group and checked out the village. They must have found something, because after that he returned to the hedgewitch's house and—presumably—" this said with another glare at E "—sent me the second letter."

The old man nodded, his eyes closed, and continued for her.

"He then gathered the entire group and entered the mountain. That was where my watch over them ended; I'm a busy man and I didn't know exactly what they were doing. It caught me by surprise when Mr. Potter and his friends were declared dead, but I didn't have any opportunity to investigate."

"According to Ginny, the Death Eaters then realized that I had mysteriously disappeared. They turned Harry into a vampire, but haven't given him blood. They killed Neville and Luna. They turned Ginny. Ron… something happened to him…" She trailed off, staring into the air. E looked over sharply.

"You didn't see?"

Hermione looked over at him slowly, a sick, heavy feeling gathering in her stomach.

"See what?"

He closed his eyes briefly, as if in pain, and reached up, pulling a rolled newspaper seemingly out of thin air.

_MEMBER OF THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX STILL ALIVE!_

It was the same paper he had shown her days ago, when he first met her.

"I don't understand," Hermione said, not reaching out to take the paper. "I read that."

"Not all of it," E replied quietly. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I thought you knew."

He unfolded the paper, showing the picture and caption underneath.

'_Lord Salazar (see above) is in charge of the _Death Eater_s' active defense squad. Lord Malfoy supplies the group and Lord Voldemort leads it.' _

The man in the picture had flaming red hair.

* * *

S- just got real.

**[1] **I know that in fifth year her Patronus was an otter. But she's over 3,000 years old; personally, I think it's less believable for her Patronus to have stayed the same. She's certainly changed a bit over the years—become more mischievous to cope with immortality, gotten more advanced and confident with magic, started cursing more, etc. If you think I should have given her a different animal, review with your suggestion and the justification.

Sorry it's shorter than usual (and about the cliffie…). I just wanted to get what I had written out there and hopefully clarify things. I feel like they spend a lot of time just going over what they know—hopefully that should dissipate when I do my edits.

Lots of twists and turns left after this… also, the next chapter will also be kind of slow, action-wise. Hermione will mostly try to untangle what she knows and work out some of the things she's missed. It may raise more questions than it answers, but let me tell you, you will never guess how this is going to work out.

Oh, by the way, if you enjoy convoluted but non-plot-hole-filled stories, check out Brandon Sanderson! He is my favorite author of all time. (No big deal.) He writes in the fantasy genre—_Elantris _and _Mistborn_ were both written by him. He has this absolutely fascinating take on religions and…..anyway, read the books, and PM me or something. I would love to have an in-depth conversation about those (my friends mostly aren't in to fantasy; I can't get them to read Sanderson's books ).

Er… so you know the title of this story? "Diplomacy"? Yeah… I don't remember why I called it that anymore. I think before my edits I was calling Gandalf and Hermione "Ambassadors". Might have called them that after the edits, now that I come to think of it.

In any event, I think the title might be vaguely appropriate later, but I'm pretty sure that I had a completely different ending in mind when I decided on it. Sorry bout any confusion…

Also: Happy AP week to anyone else suffering through exams!


	10. Whodunit?

**Disclaimer: I think if I owned this my published would have fired me by now for all the missed deadlines.**

**Posted: 9/10/13**

**Words: 3,141**

* * *

**10: Whodunit?**

* * *

E rolled the newspaper up and watched Hermione carefully. The witch blinked a few times, her gaze directed once again at the fish painting.

"I don't understand," she admitted finally, very quietly. "Ron's a bit…inconsistent, but he always came through when it mattered. Eventually."

The older wizard shook his head.

"Your friend, the vampiress, wouldn't tell me much, but from what I understand it wasn't much of a conscious decision."

Hermione looked up sharply. "You mean he's under the Imperius?"

"No," E sighed. "The Death Eaters tried to search his mind along with his sister and Mr. Potter. Unfortunately, the man who was tasked to Mr. Weasley was—less than competent, shall we say?—and made a mess of it. Either Mr. Weasley is an extraordinarily good actor, or he has gone completely mad."

Hermione fell back against the headboard, her mind blank. Her instructors had warned about the dangers of Legilimency, but she didn't use it often enough to give it much serious thought. Her focus was on defense, not offense.

"Ron is Lord Salazar," she said flatly. She closed her eyes for a moment, gathering her strength. _What was I talking about just now? Timeline. The timeline._ She took a deep breath and continued her narration.

"Ginny became a vampire, Luna and Neville died, Harry and Ron went mad. Harry is chained in a dungeon. Ron…became Lord Salazar and began working for the Death Eaters."

E nodded and once again took over the timeline. Hermione closed her eyes and remained silent, trying to compartmentalize.

"I was no longer watching the mountain, but according to your friend—Ginny—two people left for Russia; a Death Eater and a vampire. The Death Eater, apparently, was sent to Middle Earth."

"They must have started spreading their propaganda around this time, too," Hermione added, trying to focus. "We've found false sources dating back to the 22nd century."

The Department Chair nodded. "We're lucky that you collected original copies of those books; otherwise the Minister never would have believed that the Death Eaters are a threat."

"Speaking of which," Hermione said, keeping herself distracted, "How is that going?"

"Oh," E said. "That's why I'm here, actually. The Minister and, to a lesser degree, his staff are convinced that we have the right of the matter. They've started staging the 'discovery' of the books in a Ministry library to slowly discredit Voldemort. In the meantime, he wants to speak with you."

Hermione was still stuck on the first part of his statement.

"How did you get here, anyway?"

E arched an eyebrow.

"The same way you did, naturally."

Hermione shook her head. "I don't suppose it would do any good to mention the wards."

E smirked; she rolled her eyes.

"Well, I suppose a meeting could be arranged, but I'm still on bed rest and I'll have to straighten things out here first anyway."

"I figured," E said sagely. "Speaking of which, we should return to our discussion."

Hermione nodded and he continued.

"After Antonin Dolohov was sent to Middle Earth, things quieted down. I've been through the local history books—around Mr. Potter's disappearance, there were several suspicious deaths in the nearby villages. Those began to dissipate."

"According to Ginny, the Death Eaters put Marcus—that's the one that went to Russia with Dolohov—back to sleep. I'm sure that cut out some of the deaths. They also apparently used shifts, so only a few vampires were alive at a time. That would also cut back on deaths."

"And now Mr. Malfoy has a source that supplies him with donated blood, so they don't need to kill at all," E completed.

"So we know where they were for all that time." Hermione still wasn't satisfied. "But what were they doing?"

E shrugged. "Spreading pro-Voldemort propaganda while conspicuously ignoring the pureblood vs. muggleborn issue. I wish they hadn't, because that would have made our job much easier, but it seems they've dropped that part of their platform."

"You make it sound like they're a political party," Hermione commented, her tone not quite as light-hearted as she would have liked.

"They really act more like an interest group, but—well, that's the problem right there. They've already managed to get property rights to that mountain and the surrounding area—and then used those rights to get the village moved twenty kilometers south. Besides that, they've begun submitting some _amicus curiae _briefs, but none that really had any effect."

Hermione frowned.

"If the friend of the court briefs haven't had any effect, I think we can disregard them. For now, at least. That they've managed to get property rights is disturbing in that it gives them a true base of operations, but it isn't much of a goal in and of itself. What do they want?"

"Mr. Potter's first letter indicated that Voldemort wanted world domination," E supplied, also frowning. "But it seems likely that his goals have changed over the last several centuries."

"He could still be working towards that," Hermione disagreed, "But this peaceful social movement thing isn't really his style. He tended to attack violently, quickly and as often as possible."

"Perhaps he isn't as insane as we thought," E said thoughtfully. "He could have realized that the terrorist approach wasn't getting him anywhere and instead decided to wait until he was given power before abusing it."

Hermione exhaled a long, frustrated breath.

"Okay. We don't really know what they've been doing besides setting the stage for 'I 3 Voldemort' bumper stickers. We don't really know what they want, either, but our working assumption is that he still wants to take over the world, non-Pinky-and-the-Brain style."

E nodded.

"Then the next concrete evidence of their existence is in the ward on the Black Gates. In the interests of assisting the fellowship, especially with the threat of Voldemort hanging over my head, I attempted to apparate into Mount Doom. It didn't end well."

"And Dolohov is the only one who could have set the ward?" E asked. Hermione opened her mouth to answer, then closed it and frowned.

"How often have you gone through the wards to get here while both Gandalf and I were here?"

E blinked at the apparent non-sequitor. "Only three or four times."

Hermione sighed. "Proof that wards are not infallible," she muttered to herself. "I noticed that the wards were weaker when I returned after speaking to Ginny, but that was before I noticed the loss of my demi-Horcrux, so I didn't think to think too hard about it."

"And since your guardian was gone, you had no idea who was going through," E realized. Hermione blinked and looked at him strangely.

"How do you know about the guardian?"

"I had to go past it a few times," he said breezily. "But you trust me subconsciously so it didn't bother to warn you."

Hermione facepalmed, muttering something that could have been, "Stupid bloody Occlumency never bloody works…"

"In short," E continued over her dark murmurings, "We have no idea who set the ward. We also have no idea how many Death Eaters there are in Middle Earth right now."

"At least one," Hermione said, removing her hand from her face. "Dolohov is now under Sauron and Saruman's jurisdiction—Voldemort's orders—because Voldemort wants to capture me. Lord knows why," this last was directed more at the wall than at E, but he responded anyway.

"You know more than the others." His face was suddenly quite serious. "Even I have trouble remembering how long you've worked for the Department of Mysteries, and I know how you get when you're bored—you've worked on almost as many of our projects as me. Imagine what Voldemort could do with all that research and knowledge."

Hermione paled dramatically. "If I am ever captured, promise you'll either Obliviate or assassinate me."

E blinked and stared at her for a moment, then his face relaxed. "Not to worry, my dear; I doubt it would come to that. Besides, as I've told you before, I look after my own."

"Yes, yes," Hermione said, only marginally reassured. "I'm sure the department is very grateful."

He cocked his head to the side slightly. "I wasn't talking about the D.O.M. You were a Gryffindor, were you not?"

Hermione furrowed her brow, then asked, "What does that have to do with anything?"

He smiled mysteriously, then continued as if she hadn't said anything. "Dolohov is in Middle Earth, possibly with friends. He is actively attempting to stop the Ringbearer's quest."

She shook her questions away and refocused on their main topic.

"And that brings us to the present."

They were silent for a moment, contemplating the elaborate timeline Hermione had drawn in the air.

"What bothers me the most are the vampires," Hermione said suddenly. "I don't want to sound politically incorrect, but…they exist."

E chuckled darkly. "Yes. It worries me as well. I do try to keep an eye on that sort of thing, but I didn't realize this coven even existed until one of them approached me a few months ago."

"Not only that," Hermione continued. "But that Voldemort found them. What does this mean about his life span? As far as Ginny's said, he isn't a vampire and he's been in suspended animation for a long time, and since Harry, Ron and I—" She barely stuttered when she said Ron's name, but the hesitation was still there and it worried E for several reasons. "—destroyed all the Horcruxes, the only thing he has left should be the piece of soul within his body. That would make him mortal."

"Unless the vampires did something," E finished for her. "They don't have magic anymore, but they can do other things."

"Yes, that was something I wanted to ask you about," Hermione cut in. "Harry is being kept in a room in the vampires' dungeons, and the ward on the doorway is gold."

E inhaled deeply and shifted on his stool. "That's a very old art. I didn't think this coven knew about it, since so many of them are your contemporaries."

"Vampires don't have magic," Hermione said, not understanding. "How could they possibly create a ward?"

"You're right: they don't deal with magic. They deal with life, which is inextricably linked to magic." Hermione made an inarticulate sound of confusion. "I imagine it doesn't make much sense to anyone who isn't a vampire. I can tell you that their enchantments rely on blood and, occasionally, sacrifices."

"What can they do?"

"Nothing quick. The ward on the door probably took months to complete. They could probably devise some kind of battle magic, but the time it would take to finish means it's worthless."

Hermione fell silent, trying to internalize the information.

"Gold is the color of… life? Life-force? The Force? What do you call it?" She asked finally. E held back a smile.

"I generally call it life-force, but I've also heard it called 'wild magic'—a misleading term coined by frightened peasants who only knew that the thing they were dealing with came from people living in dark forests and mountains and that it was supernatural." _Not that you're bitter about frightened peasants, or anything,_ Hermione tacked on to the end, raising a brow.

"That's why Glorfindel glows!" She said suddenly, cutting off her earlier thought and sitting up straight. "He died and came back to life."

"Makes sense," E commented. "Returning to our main point, I believe it is feasible that they used a ritual to keep Voldemort alive. I can't confirm that, though—I haven't been able to catch a glimpse of him at all, and there haven't been any photographs in the newspapers. Any quotes have always been from letters or prewritten statements that were read by Death Eaters."

"So we actually have no idea whether Voldemort is even still alive," Hermione said, raising an eyebrow and resisting the urge to give in to despair.

E hummed in agreement, contemplating the fish picture on the wall to avoid her eyes.

"To sum up," Hermione said. "We don't know what Voldemorts' goal is. We know he's helping Sauron and Saruman and that he wants to capture me. We only have conjecture as to why. We don't know what the vampires want. We don't know how to kill Voldemort, or even if he can be killed. We also don't know what they're going to do next."

They paused a moment, thinking. Finally, E looked over and met her eyes, saying, "Yes, sounds about right."

Hermione looked back at him for a moment, then let her face fall into her hands.

"We're screwed."

* * *

E departed soon after the finished their meeting, saying he had to give the Minister a summary of their conclusions. Hermione lay back in her bed and began once again surveying her mindscape.

It would take a long time to build up her shields to even half of what they had been. She heaved a mental sigh and got back to work.

* * *

Hermione felt more than heard her stomach rumble. With a mental sigh, she shook herself out of her own consciousness and glanced around her room. The ever-present fish painting was the only thing staring back at her.

_Why is there a fish here, anyway?_ She thought to herself, vaguely irritated. _It's not like they're near the ocean or a large body of water or even a sizable pond, really._

Her stomach grumbled again.

_Food_. She contemplated the blankets covering her legs and, more specifically, the effort required to lift them. _I suppose if I'm going to have trouble doing that, there's no way I'll be able to make it to the kitchens for dinner._

She sighed again and pulled out the Elder wand, using the memory of waking to see Glorfindel's sleeping form to summon her Patronus.

"I need food," she told it bluntly. The lioness shook her head slightly (Hermione thought in amusement) and exited the room. "But I didn't tell you who to go to!" Hermione called after her, bemused. There was no answer. "Bloody cat," she muttered, but it lacked any real anger.

About fifteen minutes later, as she lay on the edge of sleep despite her overwhelming hunger, Hermione caught of whiff of something delicious.

_I suppose the cat knew what it was doing after all,_ she reflected, doing her best to turn towards the door.

The lioness entered first, and gave Hermione a distinctly self-satisfied look before dissipating. Glorfindel followed, wearing loose pants and a tunic rather than his usual robes and carrying two plates of food.

"Hi," Hermione said lamely. He raised an eyebrow at her as he pushed a chair towards her bed using his foot. "I hope that stupid feline didn't wake you up."

He shrugged. "I wasn't asleep and I was hungry anyway." After passing her a fork and plate, he continued, "Although I am curious as to why I was the person you asked for food."

Hermione shrugged and swallowed her mouthful. "Actually, all I did was tell my Patronus that I needed food and she left." After a moment, she added light-heartedly, "I suppose that means I subconsciously depend on you to support my basic needs."

Oblivious as she was, Hermione didn't notice the spark of something that lit up in Glorfindel's eyes as he paused in his meal to watch her.

'_I subconsciously depend on you to support my basic needs.'_ A warm feeling such that he hadn't felt before grew just above his kidney, near his heart.

"How's your… ehm… work going?" He asked, stumbling over the correct word for the mind arts. Hermione glanced up at him and spared him a quick, warm smile.

"It's going. I think tomorrow I'll be able to move around a bit." Glorfindel smiled back out of instinct, then deepened the expression as he processed her sentence.

"Wonderful! How soon until you're fully functional again?"

She frowned in thought. "I'm not sure. How long was I asleep this last session?"

"A day and a half," he answered promptly, with the air of one who has been counting minutes. Hermione winced. _No wonder I was so hungry._

"Well I don't think it'll take that long to finish up. Just a few more hours." _Which is good, because I think they're arriving in Lothlorien today, if they're not there already._

"You're having a thought," Glorfindel said warily. Hermione blinked at him and raised an eyebrow.

"I have those quite frequently, actually," she shot back.

"No, no," he waved his fork in the air. "The kind of thought that ends with people tied to trees or with purple horses."

_Heh. Good to know the twins can follow directions,_ Hermione thought, unable to hold in a smirk. "It actually wasn't quite one of the thoughts. I suppose I was scheming, though."

He relaxed marginally, but still looked somewhat wary. "What were you scheming, then?"

"The rest of the fellowship should be in Lothlorien soon. I'd like to join them there rather than later." She cut herself off just before dropping information on the separation of the group, or, worse, Boromir's death.

Glorfindel thought this over. "Alright. When do we leave, then?"

Hermione blinked at him. _I suppose I can't pull the 'you're not part of the original fellowship' card because technically I'm not either._ "Um. I hadn't quite thought that far ahead. As soon as I can walk without assistance."

He nodded affirmatively and reached for her empty plate.

"And you're going to need sleep to recover enough for that." Hermione blinked as he stood up and tried to figure out why she didn't want him to leave.

Eventually she decided she didn't care about the reason. "I've slept enough the past few days. What I need is some intelligent conversation with someone other than myself."

Glorfindel sat down a little too quickly, concealing a pleased expression, and set the plates down on the floor. Hermione smiled.

* * *

All told, it took Hermione three more days to recover. Even then, she was a tad shaky, but managed to convince Elrond that it wouldn't be an obstacle to Apparation. The usually overly protective Glorfindel was surprisingly easy to convince, probably because he was going with her.

The left unceremoniously after lunch on the third day, arriving just outside the wood, and returned just as quickly when Hermione realized she had again forgotten her cloak.

After sheepishly assuring Elrond that her forgetfulness really didn't have any subtle meaning this time, Hermione took the both of them back to the edge of Galadriel's realm. It took them only a few minutes after entering the forest to be noticed, after which they gained escort the remainder of the way to the woodland city.

* * *

**So, I'm here. And posting. This isn't abandoned—it has an outline, I swear. It was just the whole becoming-a-sophomore-in-college thing that threw me off, but I'm here now and three weeks into class and ensembles and parties and fun things, and hopefully settled into a routine, so I'll be posting more! Yay!**

**This chapter was a little shorter than usual, but I wanted to get something out there so y'all didn't give up on me and also this has been sitting in my master word document for **_**Diplomacy**_** for a freakin' long time and I wanted it out in the world. Unfortunately, this means it is unedited. Please feel free to point out grammatical errors. (Or feel free to not. I'm okay with that too. Forreal.)**

**I also just wanted Hermione out of Rivendell. I felt kind of stuck as I was writing her recovery, so I sped it up a bit. It's time to clear up some of these insane plot twists-we're going to figure out what the deal with Voldemort and Ron is next chapter, and the chapter after we actually deal with Ronald. Harry should be in that chapter and the one after, and then Hermione's thing about going to Valinor, and then a large confrontation on Earth (including figuring out the mysterious E and his place in the world) and finally, a large confrontation in Middle Earth, and then an epilogue and then WE'RE OUT. The end is in sight, people! In the same way that Mount Doom was in sight at the end of the first Hobbit movie!**

**Hopefully next chapter will be up by New Year's. Well, I'm hoping for two chapters by New Year's, because winter break. We'll see. Stay posted. :)**

**Love you all! xhugsx **


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